


Floating in Space

by Shiggityshwa



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Dark Past, Dark fic, Depression, Domestic Violence, Episode: s10e20 Unending, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Miscarriage, PTSD, Past Violence, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Pregnancy, Sexual Content, Suicide, Vala's POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2019-08-21 20:13:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 201
Words: 76,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16583351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shiggityshwa/pseuds/Shiggityshwa
Summary: A dark AU look at 'Unending'. Being stuck on the Odyssey begins to mess with Vala's mind and slowly her past begins to unravel as her relationships with those aboard the ship shift and change. Please read the additional tags for warnings.





	1. Day 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KNSkns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KNSkns/gifts).



> A/N: I started this story because I really wanted to write something dark and dealing with the psychological repercussions of being stuck with in time and how the dynamics between characters would change. Initially, I wanted to post the whole story at once but it's 75K+ words and I think the length would deter a lot of readers, therefore it will be updating daily. Some of the entries are brief and some are not. Some of the entries are rated G and some deal with issues of violence, sex, mental illness and child abuse. I will not be placing individual warnings for each chapter. 
> 
> Media references (song or film) will be added to the end notes. 
> 
> Please be patient, I promise this story is worth it.
> 
>  
> 
> Dedicated to Kat, who forced me to finish this.

_“All I want in life’s a little bit of love to take the pain away.”  
_~ “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space” by Spiritualized

øøø

 

_I’m going to go crazy, and I'm taking you with me._

øøø

Day 1

Samantha explains that the ship is caught in a temporal displacement and the universal mood is nonplussed. Cameron is aggravated, and she is scared, neither of them do well in confined quarters for a long period of time, perhaps because they are the only two members of the team who have had to deal with being confined in their own bodies for a longer period of time.

Cameron huffs away and the General makes a wide joke about paperwork and all she can do is laugh nervously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title taken from "Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space" by Spiritualized.


	2. Day 2

Day 2

Pretends it’s a normal Monday. Gets dressed at the crack of dawn and makes her bed, strolls to the commissary for breakfast, a delicious breakfast that absolutely nobody made because in their time-addled brains, they sent the chef and his men down to the stargate on a planet and they probably still haven’t made it through yet moving at only a microsecond a year, and if she has to stay here a year—she will not be staying here a year.

The General sets them all straight, tells Samantha to conjure up a table and some chairs since it’s fruitless to keep using the big empty mess hall for the six of them. Divvies up the duties and unfortunately, she’s going to have to cook one meal for everyone every other day since she really serves no other vital purpose.

He dismisses them, off to do general-y things, and leave them to straighten out what needs to be done. Samantha rushes to her lab, Daniel to the Asgard Core, Cameron huffs away again, this time in the opposite direction of everyone else, and Muscles stares at her a moment before exiting.

Another nervous laugh escapes her when she’s alone.


	3. Day 3

Day 3

He runs all the bloody time now, thump thump thumping his sneakers against the metal flooring outside of whatever room she’s in. If she tries to approach him, he just engages whatever cache of energy he has left and leaves her standing in the hallway talking to herself. Sometimes she hears him answer but can’t make out the words over the thump thump thump.

Sometimes she’s not careful enough and he almost clips right into her like some Tau’ri contact sport before shouting a warning to her, leaving her reeling in more than one doorway.

 


	4. Day 4

She does not like this.

Doesn’t like the confinement. The sensation of being lost in her own body which has happened several times before and she shouldn’t have to put up with it again. Only this time instead of being an impartial viewer from within, she’s just herself confined in another bloody place. Another prison cell, another concubine chamber, another weapon’s smuggling ring, but she can’t outsmart it, can’t fiddle with some crystals and blast away. Can’t sweettalk the guards or be seductively selective in removing clothing. Can’t play sick and then kick whoever comes to help her in the head.

She’s stuck.

She’s really stuck this time.  

She does not like this.


	5. Day 5

Muscles doesn’t really invite her along to help with the food inventory, but she’s done enough of it on the mountain that she’s practically a pro. She lets him take care of the heavy lifting while she enjoys the cool atmosphere and makes ticks and marks for each can of tomatoes.

It’s been five days, and she can’t feel anymore, like the reengineered oxygen pumping through the ship has been laced with narcotics to keep her paranoia at bay, but at night she tosses and turns and can’t fall asleep because she hears the voices. Used to after coming down from Qetesh, hearing the people screaming as she ripped them limb from limb and bathed in basins of their blood, thick and heavy in her hair, as she pulled layers of skin from muscles, as she snapped the necks of mewling children and tossed their bodies in a mass grave.

Hears the voices and she flops left and right and she’s never talked about it with anyone before, but perhaps this is the perfect situation to unbury all the mass graves within her chest.

She skulks down the hallway, unsure of who to approach for an understanding ear. It’s late, and the light is still on in Sam’s lab, but the woman is hunched over a table fast asleep with one of those little Asgardian fellows watching her peacefully. She turns out the lights and continues drifting through the corridor, arms and legs uncovered, only in a negligee because she wanted to feel the cold, wanted to feel awake, wanted to drown out the voices with another feeling.

Something slams into her from the corner and she hits the opposite wall with a crash. The bonk on the back of her head has her seeing stars momentarily, not the stars scattered in with a sluggish energy beam, but the ones that blot out her vision as her body topples.

“Jesus.” His arms scoop behind her back and stand her. She blinks a few times to clear her vision, but she knows his hands and his voice. “Vala, what the hell are you doing out here this late?”

“I couldn’t sleep.” Clasps her hand against his shoulder, warm and coated with sweat.

“Are you okay?” His fingers prod at the back of her neck, brush through her hair trying to find the area of impact.

“It wasn’t that bad.” Catches one of his fingers and lowers his hand down off her and then she lies, “I was actually just trying to find my way to you.”

“Oh yeah?” Crosses his arms and a ghost of a grin curls on his lips. “Have a problem?”

Smiles at him but it’s not true and she hates doing that, because they should know her well enough at this point to be aware when she’s lying, but they don’t. “I wouldn’t want to keep you from your run.”

His hand locks around her wrist and how many times have they collapsed into each other’s bodies in times of duress, in times of stress, breathed out garbled syllables of ecstasy against the other’s skin, fallen into an exhausted sleep coiled around each other because nothing else would put them out. “I’ll walk you back to your room.”

They have sex.

Angry, frustrating sex where he yanks her panties from beneath the hem of her negligee and she pushes down the elastic band on his sweats. He lifts her, slamming her hard into the wall beside her bed and a glass of water on her bedside table jostles. She monkeys her legs around his waist and he’s inside her almost immediately, mouth bruising the side of her neck as she pushes her cheek to the top of his head. Her back braces against the wall, an area of piping hitting her at an odd angle, but she’s too awake to notice.

Finally feeling something.

It’s wet and fast and she tightens around him seconds before he comes inside of her. Told her once he always keeps a condom on him when she’s around because he never knows. Her legs weaken around his hips, still fruitlessly pumping, and hang limp at her side, her chest heaves with the weight of his face buried at her cleavage.

They never talk about the voices.


	6. Day 6

“What’s that?”

Muscles carries a large rectangular black box. It’s about the size of a briefcase but appears to be less structurally sound.

He rotates the device showing her a slot and a bunch of camouflaged buttons. “This is a videocassette recorder.”

“Oh.” She pokes her finger at the flappy door and it swings for a bit. “Is this what it does?”

“No.” His deep voice booms seemingly more aggravated with her than usual. “It is an outdated piece of Tau’ri technology, but necessary so I can utilize the videocassettes General O’Neill so graciously bestowed upon me.”

“Oh. Can I—”

“No.”

“Oh.”


	7. Day 7

She’s bristling by the seventh day, spent most of the sixth confined to her quarters and no one seemed to notice her absence despite her counting for a little more than sixteen percent of the population of this vessel.

Her head hurts a bit from her topple with Mitchell in the hallway, her back hurts a lot from her tussle with Mitchell a few feet from where she sits. She’s not hungry or tired, but the voices drift in and out and maybe she just needs a hobby. Maybe she needs to run or read or fight or play chess.

Doesn’t feel like interacting with anyone today, so she lays back on her bed and wishes she could hear music instead of voices.

She does love to dance.


	8. Day 8

He brings her food. Some chili that General Landry made and something he calls a hot-crossed bun that’s sticky with honey or sugar and has raisins poking out all over like tiny insects. The bed dips when he sits beside her and her body slides into his a bit.

“I’m sorry about—” and he points to the wall where three days ago she last felt something.

“Nothing to apologize for.” She pokes the bun and runs her finger and thumb together to get rid of the sticky residue.

“Can you eat something?”

“I can, I don’t particularly want to.”

“Would it help if I said I want you to?”

Her eyes circle to his and she’s almost surprised how they hold her, honest in their concern and it’s something she hasn’t received in so long. “A little.”


	9. Day 9

She flops down beside Daniel at the cleaned kitchen table. She missed breakfast but is still full from the chili and hot-crossed buns of last night. Cameron held her hand as she spoke of the voices, the mothers screaming for their children, the gurgles as blood seeped from necks, and her vicious laughter, the echoing undulations of laughter. Then he tilted her head and kissed her in a gentleness that, for her, expired decades ago.

“Haven’t seen you in a few days.” Daniel glugs his coffee with a fist, his opposite hand keeping point of where he is in his book. “Where have you been?”

“In my room.”

“I figured as much.” Drops his attention back to the text leaving her on huddled on the other side of the table.

He clears his throat and sniffs once and she rubs her thighs together for warmth. She doesn’t know why she chooses this particular moment to divulge her paranoia, her imbalance aggravated by the void of space. “Daniel, I’ve been—”

“We’re all having hard time, Vala.” Doesn’t glance up from his book, but his brow furrows. “Everyone is trying to keep themselves sane, that’s why no one went looking for you.”


	10. Day 10

“Ms. Mal Doran, just because we are stuck in time doesn’t mean you can slack on your daily duties.”  For a little man he strolls at a high speed and she has to step double time to keep up with him.

“I’m sorry, but how have I not been keeping up on my duties? I made everyone a beautiful stew last night and—”

“Your room is a mess.”

“Yes, well—” She squeezes through a doorway beside him as he continues to walk straight. With any luck they’ll find Mitchell running and she can ask what exactly he does all day. “That’s my private chamber—”

“On a military vessel where rules and regulations are expected to be followed.”

“I am following them.”

“You’re out of uniform.”

“Forgive me, but we’re out of missions.” Dives before him, necessitating his halt.

The expression he gives her is worrisome, how can he punish her anymore. “Rules and regulations are in place to keep order.” Waits patiently for her to step out of his path, then continues down the corridor without her. “Without routine things fall apart.”


	11. Day 11

“Where did your nails go?”

He sets down his tray across from her at the dining table. It’s a bit small, a little quaint, and sometimes she bumps whoever’s sitting next to her by accident.

She hates it.

Would rather be sitting in the big empty mess hall, that she’s responsible for sweeping once a week despite it not actually being put to use anymore.

“I bit them off.” She pokes the yolk of her egg and watches it break across her plate pooling in with the bread and bacon.

“Why?”

“Because it’s one of the small satisfactions I still have, Daniel.”

“Oh.” He doesn’t add salt, or pepper, or that red paste the Tau’ri add to everything, just starts cutting up and eating his eggs. He points at her, mouth full, and offers, “You know, if you’re looking for something to do—”

“I don’t need your pity work.” Stands from the table leaving the tray in place as everyone congregates for breakfast.


	12. Day 12

Engages her door to find him on the other side leaning on the wall with one hand so hard the knuckles have flushed white. He is panting, but not sweaty or dressed for a run, rather in those blue army fatigues he’s so fond of. His expression seems nervous, but when his lovely eyes sway up to meet hers, she knows he’s despondent. “Mitchell, what—”

“I need—” he begins but then retracts. The hand on the wall dragging over his face, red eyes from sleeplessness, the same ones she’s seen on herself. “Are you busy, I mean if you are—”

“No.” Shakes her head, mind and throat relatively voided of words and stands aside.

He scrambles into the room, now rubbing at the back of his neck. “I’m sorry to just show up here in the middle of the day, but I need—well I think I need you, and to—well—”

“Don’t ask.” Grabs his large, finally idle hands in hers and pulls him closer towards the bed. “You don’t have to ask.”

And he doesn’t.  


	13. Day 13

She takes to snacking at night when everyone else is asleep. Actually, she snacks throughout the day because the sensation of an empty tummy is all too familiar to her. The kitchen door swings silently as she walks to the fridge to grab some Jello, some fruit, some of whatever they ate for dinner.

“Ms. Mal Doran.”  The lights spark on and she’s blinded for a moment before she distinguishes his form, in a red robe and gray slippers leaning back against the counter sipping on a cup of cocoa.

“Sir,” greets a little nervously, she really doesn’t want any duties added to her list, right now she can easily accomplish her week of work in half a day and use her idle time for pining for being unstuck.

When she pivots to leave, he beckons her back, “Uh, Ms. Mal Doran, a word?”

“I’m sorry I’ve been sneaking snacks, but the extended time in space is really, well, I’ve never been much for meals, just casual snacking, I don’t really like the commitment of full meals, I’m really a more on the side woman—not to say—”

The General interrupts her with a single raised hand and her lips staple together. “Eat when you’re hungry, Vala.”

“Okay,” agrees with hesitancy because she’s too tired to decipher if he is lying. “Thank you, Sir.”


	14. Day 14

She tries to go running with him, but he expresses his need to be alone. When she traces a hand up his bicep, he backs away from her, pulling her touch from him without malice, but it doesn’t hurt any less.

Sam announced in the morning they’re officially stuck until she can work out other methods because plans A through C have failed. She wants to comfort him as he comforted her, but his lips are tight on his face and he shakes his head at her, jogging away.

It’s almost tomorrow when she grabs the handcuffs and stands outside Daniel’s door, her eyebrow raised with high expectations, but he simply closes the door on her without uttering a single word. Maybe she doesn’t want to comfort either of them, maybe she wants to feel alive for a single second while stuck in time.

Her room is dark, and she lays on her back, bare legs tingling in the air because at night they turn off the climate to conserve energy, and she tries to remember the songs her mother taught her as a child. Tries to remember lyrics and limericks cooing from her mother’s mouth as she braided her hair or pulled it into pigtails.

And she can’t.

So she cries.


	15. Day 15

Walks into Mitchell and Muscles watching a movie in the shared grand room, a place for them to congregate if they feel like doing something out of their quarters that isn’t cooking or showering. 

“What’s this?” 

“It.” Muscles answers, and there may be a faint hint of a grin on his face.

“Sorry, what’s it?” Leans against the back of the couch. Doesn’t make contact with Mitchell, not out of pettiness, but because he still might need time to himself. 

“No Vala Mal Doran, the film is entitled, It.” 

“Great.” She’s about to pull away from the back of the couch, but the grainy screen shows a small boy plodding down the street playing in the gutters and he’s quite cute. His little boat falls down the gutter and—

She jumps away from the couch at the sight of the man, the demon, some alien species. His awful large head and froggy voice and terrifying red hair. “What is that!” 

“That’s Pennywise.” Mitchell sighs, his eyes half-lidded, but when he views her expression the annoyance on his face fades, turns to confusion. “You okay?” 

“Why does he look like that?” Her hands grip the edge of the side table, one decorated with a few personal pictures the others have removed from their dorms and placed to make the vessel feel more like home.

“He’s a clown,” answers as if she knows what that Tau’ri word means.

Muscles turns the volume up and suddenly he grabs the boy and he—

She might let out a small yelp, jostling all the personal pictures, “Have you killed the Pennywhiz?” 

“What?” 

“Is he dead?” 

“It is a movie, Vala Mal Doran—” 

“Is he dead?” Creeps up to the back of the couch, fixated on the still of a tiny coffin on the television screen. 

He gives two gentle pats to Muscles’s shoulder, then scoops her hand and points at the screen, his thumb scrolling indolently over her knuckles. “He’s dead. This was made in the 1990s and they beat him at the end.” 

“Don’t patronize me, Mitchell.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Princess.”


	16. Day 16

Someone decides that they should play poker after supper.

It is not her.

Apparently, being stuck together on this vessel is no longer sufficient, they now must spend every waking moment together while playing a Tau’ri game of chance.

It is not like it was at the cabin, she engages in no chatter, in no gameplay, and is happy enough to keep acting as the dealer because saying words like ‘the turn’ and ‘the river’ give her the allusion of intelligence while the voices in her head speak of the river in her home world, the one that ran through the plot of land they’d purchased.

How she washed her feet against the smooth stoned bottom after clearing out the wilderness for crops.

Then the screams.

He reached for her and screamed, and the blood was so thick she could drown in it.

“Hey Princess,” Mitchell beckons her back to the table, not blanketed in felt, but their two-week-old metallic dining table. A table of convenience. Her eyes find five pairs staring back at her, not knowing the pain she just experienced, the realities she’s faced.

Except perhaps him.

Wide eyes not in shock, but in concern. Darting to and fro to ensure no one translated this concern, and therefore their sordid affair. Then he drops her the hint to get her back into this reality. “Not much poker chatter, you losing your touch?”

“You can’t lose something you’ve never had.”

Or can she.

Flips the final card over, unsure of who was in and who folded, or who had the better odds. “The river is the queen of spades.”  


	17. Day 17

He runs by her bedroom door at half past three in the morning. She knows this because she’s been watching the clock for the last hour and a half trying to decide if it’s worth getting out of bed to wander and explore the lower levels of the ship or not.

Sometimes she finds engineering rooms, other times she discovers holds with crates full of popcorn kernels and she doesn’t think she’ll ever understand Tau’ri ways.

“Hey.” He skids to a stop, his voice gentle and a sheen of sweat peeking out from his temples. She’s wearing a thin camisole and very soft yoga pants and she suddenly feels very vulnerable. “I’m sorry about when—last time.”

“It’s fine.” Normally she would flaunt the fact that she’s not wearing a bra around him, but since he turned her away, she feels subordinated, perhaps a bit betrayed, and she crosses her arms over her chest.

“Princess,” he mumbles, his head hanging close to hers, his hands treading up her bare arms and sparking over her skin. “I just needed to work through it on my own.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for.” His nose touches hers and she turns her head, feeling his sigh in her ear.

“You needed me.”

Their fingers clasp together fitting nearly perfectly.

When did she come to rely on him so much? when did his denial of her begin to break her heart? She used to be stronger until voices and words made her weak.

“How I can make it up to you.”

“Come to sleep with me?”

They usually don’t share a bed for activities other than sex. Half the time they don’t have sex in the bed either. He bows, she curtseys, and whoever visited the other goes on their way. But she feels on edge, not exactly unsafe or unwell, just—on edge.

He kisses the crown of her head, moving back into her room without another word.

She’s tired of all the words.

 


	18. Day 18

She sleeps through the night for the first time, waking blanketed in his arms. His breath is hot and sour against her forehead.

She sighs and falls easily back to sleep.


	19. Day 19

Day 19

They’re making use of the grand room, or as General Landry calls it, the ‘rumpus room.’ Cameron and Teal’c are watching another movie, thankfully not that horrid _It_ , something about some sort of quadruped animal belonging to a loving family. Daniel sits in an armchair in the corner reading a book, not in Ancient or Asgardian, but just a normal Tau’ri written novel, and Samantha is free-handing some mathematical equations.

She doesn’t have any hobbies yet, other than preforming shenanigans in order to keep their lives from getting stale.

Samantha’s next plan of unsticking the ship would utilize the dialing crystal. She keeps running the formulas back in a tiny mumbling voice, and then scratching symbols on her pad of graph paper.

“You’re working too hard.” She utters a harsh whisper as to not involve the boys.

“Vala, please I—”

She leans in closer, folding her arms and resting her head upon them. “If you’re stuck, I always find it’s best to bang your ideas off someone.”

“Bounce. Bounce ideas off someone.” Daniel mutters, nose still pressing the pages of his book.

Samantha forces a smile. “I’m trying to discern if I use the dialing crystal in the experiment and destroy it, if a crystal generated by the matter creator would work.”

“Oh, that’s easy.” She laughs brightly, “Yes, it will.”

“Will what?”

“It will work.”

“Vala,” Daniel sighs into his hand and rests his novel spine up against his thigh. “You can’t possibly know that.”

“Yes, I can.”

“How.”

“Because I’ve used a counterfeit dialing crystal before, darling. Although it does give a bit of lingering nausea, there’s no real harm.” She picks at her fingers, knowing without looking the expression everyone is wearing, because her hobby is to know them.

Her hobby is to not let them know her.

“I did have a life before I met you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cam and Teal'c are watching Cujo


	20. Day 20

"What is this?" Stares in disgust at a mug of dishwater sitting on the kitchen counter.

"That's my tea." He answers, rolling up his shirt sleeves and buttoning the cuffs to secure the fabric in place.

"This is not tea."

"It's orange pekoe." His hands dip into the water retrieving a crusty dish and after wiping it clean of residue, he hands it to her to towel dry. She doesn't understand why she needs to dry the dishes by hand when they could just as easily air dry, other than to waste time.

They're on a ship that's powered by the sacrifice of their time.

Glosses the towel over the dish and sets it on the counter. "It's barely got any color, how could you possibly enjoy drinking flavored water?"

"It's  _my_ tea," he emphasizes and shoves another sopping dish into her hands.

"Well, if you ever want to find out how to make tea properly, you know where to find me."


	21. Day 21

She finds Samantha in her lab with her arms folded around her head softly sobbing.

Soundlessly, she pads into the room, barefoot as she’s given up shoes for the week to see if that will change the way she feels. So far it hasn’t.

She wheels over a stool and Samantha doesn’t react until she drops a hand to her shoulder causing her to flinch away, tears white and glistening on her appled cheeks.

They don’t exchange any words or even expressions. She simply pulls Sam into a hug and holds her while she cries.

It takes a few moments for the crying to resume but it does.

Eventually, it always does.


	22. Day 22

  
“Why is this here?”

“What?” Daniel stops behind her. He’s carrying a rather large book that his index finger acts as a mark for and is crunching loudly into a not so red apple.

“This.” She taps at the corridor wall, more specifically the picture hanging on the corridor wall.

He crunches again, and she can hear the texture of the fruit in his mouth. “Oh, that’s an eagle, it’s symbolic of—”

“Yes, Daniel, I am familiar with the symbols of your overzealous nation.” She taps the corner of the frame and finds that it stays in place. “Why is there a picture of an eagle in the hallway of a spaceship.”

“Patriotism.”

“Do you enjoy this?”

“It’s kind of homey.”

“You defend Earth with this vessel.”

“It’s just a bird, Vala.” He continues walking and crunching down the corridor and she spends the next fifteen minutes trying to pry the painting from the wall.


	23. Day 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're over a tenth of the way through already! I know it's been kinda sweet and slow but it really starts screaming at around 90 days. Or three months in. Do you remember what happens on the Odyssey three months in?

“Vala Mal Doran,” he greets her with as much surprise as his voice can muster.

She’s sitting on several lumpy bags of potatoes in the refrigeration unit watching her exhalations curl away from her mouth and diffuse into the air.

“Do you ever feel stuck, Muscles?” Keeps staring at the wisps, little ghost breathes twisting and floating away like smoke from the campfires they would have in her backyard as a child. Like smoke from the buildings of villages she ravaged as Qetesh, cinders swirling around her wrists and gritted beneath her nails.

A fire in the middle of the city square.

“No.”

“I just, sometimes I feel like the walls are closing in just a bit, you know?”

“Then why did you move to a smaller room?”

He tugs on the sack beneath her feet and she brings her knees to her chest, allowing him to take her ottoman. “To control it.”

“No.” Shakes his head and slams his palm flat into the heavy metal door to open it.

“That wasn’t a—”

“No.”

 


	24. Day 24

They start having these horrid dinners where they need to dress up in uncomfortable Tau’ri clothing and hold small talk like they’re schmoozing at one of those fundraising parties they always forget to invite her to. She didn’t pack any formal clothing, dresses or otherwise, because the last time she packed a hairdryer Daniel donated it to the Merlin cause and her hair went frizzy for the next ten days. She didn’t want him to somehow confiscate the beautiful black dress she wore to Cameron’s reunion, so the nicest shirt she has is the blue one she got amnesia in.

When she wears it, and a pair of black slacks, Daniel shifts across from her obviously uncomfortable with the memories it resurfaces, and she would much rather being wearing a sweater and a pair of yoga pants, but Cameron had to suggest the absurd idea of eating together once a month.

They sit in silence, plastic eating implements digging against plastic serving trays and she forgets who is the first one to leave, but she volunteers to clean up just to get out of any sporadic conversation that might erupt.


	25. Day 25

Alcohol has never been a problem for her.

Tau’ri alcohol even less so.

She built a resistance to it from a fairly young age, a child slave to a weapons smuggler and he had to give her something to calm her nerves.

Something to make her more compliable.

However, she has her limits and shot over them with the bottles strewn around the floor and acid roiling in her stomach.

Doesn’t hear him enter, or talk to her, or address her because the voices have stopped. Mostly. They’re a bit mixed with colors now, paints poured into the vortex of her mind in elaborate galaxy swirls and rainbow puffs. The colors are better than words, they relax and remind her of toys she would see adverts for during commercial breaks for television shows.

“This place looks like an adult ball pit.” Is the first thing she comprehends him saying as he wades through the discarded bottles surrounded by the echoing clinks of glass rolling off each other.

She’s strewn across her bed, her arms relaxed over her head and grazing the headboard, she chuckles in contentment. “What is a ball pit?”

“It’s a hole filled with brightly colored, lightweight plastic balls.” He sits down, and she feels the bloom of warmth from his hand to her thigh. “You sort of swim through them.”

She leans up on her elbows. “It sounds like I would love it.”

“You would love it.” He chuckles back, his hand rubbing up and down her legs, sending shivers up her spine.

“So, take me to it.”

“Can’t Princess, we’re stuck on a ship that’s stuck in time.”

Falls back onto the pillow with a plop and when he speaks a navy-blue thread is added in with her colors. She likes it the most.

“You men and your excuses.”


	26. Day 26

“What’re you doing?”

“Well,” Desperately tries to hold back her tears, sniffling instead, and perhaps he’ll think she’s just getting sick. “With you and Teal’c watching all those films—and there’s not much for me to do so I—”

“Did you watch the clown movie again?” He approaches her sitting in a clumped pile at the end of her bed, her comforter removed and encasing her body, balls of tissue crumpled on the ground.

“No.” She smashed the clown movie and hid the remains in the kitchen garbage. “I asked Samantha for some recommendations and she—”

Has the audacity to chuckle at her, kicking a few used tissues out of the way, much like the bottles he helped her collect yesterday. She thanked him, generously, but they don’t really spend the night with each other much, and she doesn’t know if it bothers her, or if that it bothering her bothers her.

She woke up with a grand post-intoxication headache and her first round of cramps since The Odyssey became stuck. After bursting into Samantha’s laboratory and declaring she needed tampons, not noticing Muscles eyes bloom from sheer horror from the corner of the room, Samantha offered her some movies to watch over the next few days and posed that her cramps could be worse from the prolonged pressures of space.

She hadn’t been wrong.

“So, you’ve burritoed yourself in your blanket and you’re watching chick flicks?”

“Do not make fun of me, Cameron.” She means it to sound threatening, that the next time he drifts down to kiss her thighs she’ll twist her legs around his neck until it pops, but it comes out as a plea with a lingering tear she fought to contain. The pain is extraordinary, she is exhausted, and she thought this movie would be about the ocean.

“Okay.”

She snorts in a manner that can only be construed as unattractive and flips the blanket so it piles around her neck, hiding most of her face. He sits next to her, dropping his hand to her thigh which she still might kill him with.

“Hey, it’s okay.”

“I hate it here,” sobs into the blanket, the fabric quickly becoming wet and itchy.

“We all hate it here.”

“I feel like it’s driving my balls.”

“It’s driving you nuts.”

“Whatever.”

He adjusts her, sliding her closer to him, rolled up in the blanket like a fluffy marshmallow. The angle sets her body on fire, and a stabbing pain like a bullet in her side.

“Ah.”

“What?” Retracts his hands from her, and that only makes it flare more.

“Nothing, it’s just painful.”

“What’s painful.”

“Space. Space is painful and even though we’re in here with simulated gravity and air, our bodies will never get used to the pressure exerted out there.” Jabs a finger towards the window, accusatory a bit at the beam. “So now when experiencing moon tides, it’s—”

“Moon tides? What’s that?” The unimpressed glare she offers up as an answer quickly stumbles him upon the answer. “Oh.”

“Yes. Oh.”

“Well.” He snakes a hand under the edge of her comforter and his fingers trail over her knee and up her thigh. Despite knowing his intentions, when he strokes her, it still illicits a shudder. “I know an almost fool proof way to help.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The movie referenced in this chapter is Beaches.


	27. Day 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick heads up that I might not be able to post a chapter on the 7th or the 8th as I'll be at the Holiday Fan Expo in Toronto trying to sell my Farscape and Stargate art :D I will have my phone though and try to update through it.

Him flipping away from her, disengaging from her really, wakes her. The lapse of heat at her back and the lifted weight of his arms more potent than any alarm clock. She arches her back against him and finds him lying flat. “Morning darling.”

Last night he was very attentive to her, which while not out of character is not as common as her getting him off so he’ll relax for a bloody minute. He was also completely correct and after he pulled out of her, she didn’t feel the intense cramps for the rest of the day.

Leaning up on an elbow, she blinks at him, fingernail tracing over his bicep, knowing his precursor ramble is about to explode out of his mouth. “Go, Cameron”

Only stares a moment before sitting on the side of his bed and hiking up his pants. She’ll find his boxers later and set them aside for him to take on his next visit. “Vala—not here—it—” Sentences he starts and aborts until he yanks on a navy blue shirt with a golden emblem and stops at her door. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.” 


	28. Day 28

“Well this looks—” she pauses taking in the various plants, more than a few, a little more than a dozen, spread out over his office, some in spaghetti jars, others in bean cans. Circles of brown with just the faintest green tips sprouting forth. “Different.”

“Colonel Carter’s reengineered oxygen is playing havoc on my lungs.” He’s wrist deep in planting a rather large looking shrub in a coffee can. “Years of smoking finally catching up I guess.”

“Smoking?” She rolls the leaflet of a tiny bud between her index finger the thumb.

“Yep.” Grunts and reclaims his hand now spotty with soil. “Two packs or so a day for fifteen years. Cigars on special occasions and Fridays.”  He coughs into his balled, browned fist as if for emphasis.

Sweeps her hand across his desktop collecting all the clumps of escaped dirt into her empty palm and tossing them back into the pot. “If you’re having trouble breathing, I can recommend some herbs than can help. When I was a child I worked for an apothecary—”

“My breathing is just fine, Ms. Mal Doran.” He mists the transplanted shrub and glances up to her from under low laying brows. “But thank you for your concern.”


	29. Day 29

“What are those?”

She peers over the side of the couch, observing Daniel as he tries to read and take a sip of tea at the same time. A cup of his horridly weak tea set on the occasional table beside him and a plate of round, black treats.

“What?” He asks as he pulls his head up from the book and snaps one in half, they’re white inside.

She shuffles over the length of the couch and throws herself on the arm a few feet away from where he’s reclined in a chair under the floor lamp. “What are those?”

“What are what?’

She widens her eyes at the food in his hand and his head snaps back up to her. “The oreos?”

“Yes, what are they.”

“You’ve had oreos before.”

“No, I’ve had SGC mess hall food for the better half of three years.”

“Oh, well.” Sets his book in his lap and a thumb raises to push up the bridge of his glasses. “They’re a chocolate biscuit around a—You’ve have to have had oreos before.”

“Yes of course, you’re completely right.” Agreeing is sometimes the easier thing to do. Even when she knows she’s right.

Even when it still hurts to do.

She hops off the arm of the couch intent on leaving him to his munching and reading in peace.

But he grabs her hand as she passes, the last half-eaten cookie slots between her fingers and when she arches an eyebrow at him and he grins, bits of chocolate stuck between his teeth.


	30. Day 30

Sometimes she stares out the window, watches the energy beam and goads it on, sometimes in her head, sometimes with hateful words spewing from her mouth in English and Goa’uld and what she’s learned of Ancient.

She has her blanket wrapped around her shoulders and feels like someone who would be living on the streets, the people Daniel told her to stay away from when he took her on the not-a-date a thousand years ago.

A hard hand comes down on her shoulder before she notices him, and his wavy reflection half disappearing behind the brightness of the beam. He doesn’t say anything to her, not even ‘indeed’, but allows her to lean her head against his shoulder as they hate the beam together.

 


	31. Day 31

He comes back.

Reliable in his military drilled routines, his uneasiness eating away until regret fills in. Never says much, but always apologizes, and it never used to be this way.

The sex they had prior to becoming simultaneously stuck and unstuck was guilt free, revolved more around orgasms and sharing the workload, than it did about any sort of emotion they could get bungled in.

Now their contact is frequent, addicting, and has been thrust into a dangerous territory.

Cannot say anything to him as his hands slide a bra strap from her shoulder and replace it with his hot mouth, and she doesn’t want to encourage him, should snuff this—whatever this is—out before it has a chance to grow into something more desperate, more unstable.

But she focuses on his hands, the weak freckles she distinguishes in the dim beam light, kneading at her breasts and how she just responds like they’re having a conversation with their bodies because he drowns out all the other words, the other voices in her head.

When his fingers slip down the front of her pants and hook in her panties, she bucks her hips at the momentary stability. Falling for days and finally standing on solid ground. But he halts, his hand remaining teasingly splayed, tracing the line in the crevice of her hip.

“I’m sorry.”

She knows, and she doesn’t care.

The emotions entangled in their affair, their connection, are nothing. The settling, the relaxing she gets from him equates with him getting her off, and the voices dissipating from her in postcoital fatigue.

Grabs his head between both her hands, plunging them into a kiss that stops his caresses, his apologies.

“Show me then.”


	32. Day 32

“We used to have this old Coonhound named Moxie who would tear out of the barn first come dawn and take off down to the river every time it rained.”

They’re seated around the table regaling each other of pet stories, which are a very specific Tau’ri occurrence. Other species may have similar relationships with lesser species, but she’s never seen anyone bond with an animal the way the Tau’ri do.

Samantha halts the fork on route to her mouth with prongs full of Caesar salad. Apparently, Caesar is a salad but not all salads are Caesar. “Why’d he do that, Sir?”

“He loved to roll in the reed mud, but the damn dog was so particular he’d only do it if it was made wet by rainwater.”

Everyone laughs, her as well, joining in from peer pressure.

Hasn’t had much experience with animals.

Cameron did show her around his parents’ farm which had a beautiful mare that huffed when she touched its snout. There were goats and chickens and other animals her world considered merely commodities, and when they went back into the house that night, the family dog had torn through her bag and strewn her clothing about Cameron’s room. She laughed as he grew red, profusely apologizing as he helped her collect panties and socks from the tops of high school football trophies. She tugged on his red ear, they’d already had sex a dozen times, and his turmoil at her geysered clothing was very chivalrous.

“I had a cat once.” Daniel continues the stories from the opposite end of the table. “I mean he wasn’t so much my cat as the library cat meant to catch mice.”

“Was it not efficient enough at the job, Daniel Jackson?”

“No, not at all—” he removes his glasses cleaning them with a spare napkin from the center of the table. “It was fat as hell and used to get stuck under the bookshelves.”

Everyone breaks into laughter again, including her but it’s fake, nervous, like the blast of a weapon as she side eyes the others to ensure she’s doing it correctly and for long enough.

There was a cat once, a sleek black cat that hung around her house when she was a child, after her father left her mother, but before her mother fell ill. Her mother insisted the cat stay outside, but she would sneak it treats at lunch and dinner. Leave out the dinner refuse for it to eat because it looked so skinny. One day it graced her with bopping its head against her hand and let her pet its soft fur from head to tip.

Felt the reverberation of it’s purr through her fingertips.

Then one day, just as quickly it was gone.

The neighbor didn’t put up with the cat as well as her mother and after capturing it, tossed it in a bag into the river behind their houses. She spent hours staring at the current looking for burlap bags, or a wet, coughing cat.

Wanted to apologize because she made it trusting.

Wanted to comfort because she knows how cold that river is.

“What about you, Vala?”

“I’m sorry?” Blinks and ducks her head up from her plate of uneaten Caesar salad.

Cameron sits higher in his chair, his salad more bacon than anything else. “Got any good pet stories?”

“No.” Her grin fake, but polite and they’ll never know the difference. “Unfortunately, my people don’t appreciate animals to the same respect as you do.”


	33. Day 33

“So what do they sound like, exactly?” He tries to hide his tone of suspicion, but she’s gotten good at sniffing it out over the years, when she could possibly be discovered as not Qetesh, when one of her bartering deals is going array, when her bluffing is digging a deeper hole and more men corner her.

Closes her eyes, pain ached and dry from being unable to sleep easy, when his dry thumb drags over the lids, scratching away at her eyelashes and combing through her brow. “They sound like everything. Like everyone one.”

Adjusts his knees, probably because of his thigh, and her head bobs. He’s always so very warm and the effect if comfort, lulling and relaxing, stressed drained from her body into his. “Just like a whole room speaking at once, or?”

“Memories overlapping memories, darling.” Manages to snag his hand again, eyes still closed, just on the brink between wakefulness and sleep, returning it to her forehead where he smooths out fingers against her skin.

“Good or bad?”

“Overwhelmingly bad.”

“What if I do this?” Warmth becomes absence across her eyes, her temples, her forehead and instead pools at her ears where he cups his hands.

“That’s just making my ears hot.”

“Yeah, but it’s keeping the evil out.” His voice, gravelly in his throat from lack of hydration, from the fatigue of jogging around a ship twice a day, grows closer in proximity, her chin grazing over her head as he whispers to her.

“Nothing keeps the evil out, Cameron.”

His lips, dry and calloused like his fingertips, blush over her forehead and he again fans his fingers out over her eyes. “You’re doing a good job, princess.”   



	34. Day 34

The bed creaks with his shift in weight. Bleary-eyed, she views the clock at the side of her bed, red numbers declaring it’s the unholy hour of five in the morning. Hates it when mission briefings start at six and to look even remotely presentable, she has to get up at half past four.

But there are no briefings because there are no missions.

There are whispering voices, light like wind ruffling the leaves, and him struggling to put on his pants.

“Cameron, just turn on the light.” Finds herself cuddling a pillow to her chest, laying flat on her stomach with her head turned away from his side of the bed. Though she’s not a fan of the emotion, she still loves a good cuddle. Nothing makes her feel warmer or safer than being tucked into a strapping man’s arms because then whoever may come after her in the night has another, larger, target.

Something clatters from the side table and she is not cleaning it up. Five in the morning is definitely meant for sleeping, not cleaning.

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” he groans as he retrieves the fallen object and it thumps back onto the table. Then there’s the light hiss of his zipper and he should be gone, shirt in hand and off starting jog one of four or five that day. Might utter an awkward apology about not wanting to use her for sex, use her body to get off, not thinking she does the exact same thing to him, and she’ll reply with ‘okay’ or ‘I know’ and go back to bed for another three or four hours.

But the bed bounces again and his hot mouth once again covers her shoulder. “I’ll see you at breakfast.”

And the way he says it, it sounds like a promise.

“Breakfast is hours away.”

“Not on army time.”

He kisses her again, this time on the side of her neck, then behind her ear and she starts to rouse but doesn’t want to. Instead she rolls over, flat on her back beneath him, one of his hands flat on the mattress beside her hip and the other brushing the hair out of her face. “Why are you up at this ungodly hour?”

“Army habit. I always get up between five and six.”

Her fingers stroke the side of his face, feel the stubble that’s grown in since last night, his skin cold and exposed to the lack of climate control. “And that doesn’t upset you?”

“No. I got up this early when I was a kid too. Farm work starts early in the morning. I’ve just always been an early riser.”

“Is that what they call it?”

His mouth is close to closing over hers once again, and they’ve never had this before. Postcoital banter, the innuendos neither need to become aroused, a morning after kiss, or even a morning after. He or she will leave in the darkness and the next day they have memories and denials through their interactions.

He kisses her, different than last night, soft and slow, just a little bit sweet and she doesn’t hate it.

They’re in trouble.

“Only with you, Princess.”


	35. Day 35

It actually is her birthday today, but no one seems to remember.

No one seems to remember because she’s sure no one knows the true date of her birth, herself included. Lost so many years to Qetesh, and then the running. Slinking around in the dark parts of commerce planets and bazaars. Stealing objects and cargo ships and selling trinkets that never truly belonged to her.

From a sarcophagus she might be a thousand years old, from close calls and missed escapes she might be hundred, but in the time she had truly to her self, she’s less than five.


	36. Day 36

Finds him running diagnostics on the ship, something originally part of Samantha’s responsibilities, but they’re trying to give her as much free time as they can to sort out the whole time dilation field mishap. He’s learned how to do it well in just over a month’s worth of training, and she’s caught him in here before, staring at the code flashing up on the screen as the internal computers run their program.

“I see you’re putting your time to good use, Colonel.” Addresses him appropriately because it’s one of their hitch words, a password expressing her intent.

But he doesn’t respond in the like, and she doesn’t know what to do because this never happened on the base. Granted, they’re growing closer, dangerously closer, and relying on each other a tad too much for sex as a veil for stress relief. It used to be her clinging to him, not a needy person or partner when it comes to companionship but being around him gives her something concrete to focus on when the voices distract her.

Now it’s him seeking her out, needing to spend time with her, that is, until he decides he’s better without her which lasts a few days before he returns with apologies rolling off his tongue as it rolls against her body.

“Nothing but time now.” Doesn’t turn his head towards her when he speaks, there’s no affirmation of her intentions in a checked eyebrow or lip lick. Instead he straightens his chair to the console, still watching a blinking little cursor as more numbers pop up on screen. “Something I can help you with?”

Logically, she should have been the one to preform this action once a week, she has more experience in galactic transportation that the others placed together, but she knows the Tau’ri ways by now, knows that they’ll never give her privileged access to their defense vessel. Though last time she managed to fix it with a simple blow and shove, which is apparently how she’s fixing all the things broken aboard the _Odyssey_.

“I was thinking about having a movie night, whichever one Samantha conjures up along with popcorn from a crate in the third cargo containment unit. Can I interest you in joining?” A more thinly veiled proposition that even Cameron in work mode will be able to read through.

He clears his throat, and presses buttons she knows he doesn’t need to press. “Kind of busy here.”

She understands his aloofness, his everlasting concern with being discovered, especially now in close quarters, and facing recriminations when their sexual trysts probably don’t matter half as much to the military as the codes and floorplans she’s stored away in case a rainy day ever arrives when they turn on her.

“Of course, sorry to interrupt your work, Colonel Mitchell.” Sets his jaw at the title, hates being called the title by her because she either says it in jest or in hostility and she doesn’t give him the satisfaction of glancing over her shoulder to gauge his reaction.

 


	37. Day 37

“I think I have it.”

Slams her hands down on their quaint dining table across from him and isn’t surprised when his eyes barely scroll to meet hers. He doesn’t speak a word, doesn’t arc an eyebrow her way or nod as a signal to continues, only tags his teabag hanging on the end of a craft string in an out of the water, dyeing it a darker brown.

Does no one on this ship know how to make proper tea?

In his lack of approval, she finds the need to continue, “what if there’s a hitchhiker aboard the ship?”

“No.” Shakes his head in time with the dip of the teabag.

“No you won’t hear me out, or no to the idea.”

“Both.”

Fists his hand around the mug and lumbers away from the table. She trails, not entirely dissuaded yet. “What if one of the Ori snuck aboard the ship and mucked with—”

“No.”


	38. Day 38

They try to have a family game night at the General’s behest, but she doesn’t know any of the games Samantha has conjured up.

She volunteers to keep score or be the banker as Daniel suggests but the General wants everyone to have fun and to play along so it takes an extra hour to explain the rules of the games to her, which she continually confuses for the rest of the night, but she carries on with a bright bubbling exterior while her inner self rots away.

They play a game where she has to buy property as a little mongrel animal and it reminds her of purchasing the first plot of land with her fiancé when she was nineteen a few years before Qetesh burned the city down and slaughtered him as he called out to her.

“Vala,” Daniel’s hand slaps the table to get her attention, jittering around the little red and green houses on the gameboard. “It’s your turn.”

Everyone is staring at her.

She could excuse herself, but perhaps that would be seen as demanding recognition or being dramatic, so she apologizes and rolls the dice and ends up in jail.


	39. Day 39

Awakens to the taste of river water filling her lungs, the memory so far in the past its barely her own, yet opened like a fresh wound as her father beckoned her to the river and the stones seemed so big under her feet, feet that barely grasped walking, but slid her hand into her father’s and grinned up at him, the cold water covered her toes and made her shiver.

Then she was under and not breathing, the force of the stream strong and the strength of his hand on the back of her head stronger, his free hand grabbed her flailing arms and when she screamed bubbles popped out like stars in the night sky.

It was cold water growing colder, dark water growing darker and her muscles grew flaccid and burdened.

Suddenly, his grip released, and her mother swept her across the surface of the water and into her arms. She shook, violently shook and coughed up the brownish water. Her mother’s voice was shrill and her father’s grew louder as they spoke of income and expenses.

She saw him infrequently afterwards, accepted his trinkets like reaching a hand into a baited bear trap.

When her mother died, and he became sole owner of her, not caregiver, not on her planet, and he explained that he’d already sold her to Fierenze, she asked him to take her to the river instead. The flow strong and the water bleak from the winter ice caps melting into rushing and vicious currents.

“Vala, Honey, I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.” Visibly disturbed, he laughed it off to Adria, who smiled back rubbing the dip of her round belly.

She only ever saw her baby brother once.

He didn’t live very long.


	40. Day 40

Get’s tired of waiting for him to apologize because despite not being all that busy, she’s rather impatient. Will probably apologize in some whole-hearted would-be adorable fashion, that will irk her while melting her heart, and he’ll kiss her neck, and she’ll shiver into him. She’s wants that, but he’s hardly been running at all, at least not by her door during the usual times.

Instead she ends up breaking into his room, which isn’t so much breaking and entering as it is remembering the tune of the four-digit code on his lock. Why is he always privy to her codes, her secrets, yet she’s expected to be passive with his?

It takes less than two minutes. She gets it on the second try.

Then she rummages around his room after growing more bored waiting for him to return from his shower, which turns out to be quite a long shower, which means he was probably being just as dirty as he is clean.

She’s been with enough men to know the usual places, but his bedside table is curiously empty with only a few pieces of paper, and a hand-written note from his parents. Expects to find it in a Tupperware container in the bottom of his dresser drawer or perhaps under his bed, he is after all, the spitting image of a military man neat freak.

But again, no luck.

Finally, she reverts back on the tried and true. Grabs the edge of his mattress and hefts it up, finding two magazines hidden between the slats beneath.

“Jackpot.”

Is flipping through the pages when the doors to his room whoosh open and he stands in the doorway, his face still shiny with the recent shower water.

“I bet you could’ve used these just now.” She fans the magazines at him.

“You crack the door?” Ignores her rib and pulls the towel from around his neck, tossing it into the laundry hamper.

“Didn’t need to, Darling.” Doesn’t look up from the pornographic material, which is mild, very mild by her count. “Your Tau’ri vessel uses different intonations for each number.”

“It’s helpful to anyone who’s vision impaired, the numbers relate to different sounds.”

She licks her finger purposefully and taps at the bottom corner of the page before turning it slowly, leaning back into the side of the mattress and crossing her legs. “While it’s lovely to be inclusive, there are no blind employees that were on this ship. It’s probably a horrible flaw for international defense.”

Tugs off his shirt, a navy blue one with a weird golden symbol in the center, into the bin as well. “You’re going to go blind if you stare at that magazine too long.”

“What?”

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you that you’d go blind if you saw too much porn?”

“My mother died when I was twelve and she was very sick before then, so she didn’t say much of anything.” The magazine flips closed and she steeples her fingers against her knee, keen on interrupting him before he apologizes. “Perhaps she never needed to warn me because I don’t do things in access.”

“And I do?”

“Well I haven’t jogged the entirety of a ship today.” Pulls a large, false grin that explains she’s already won the fight they’re not having. Cementing it with two wiggling fingers. “Twice.”

“Look is there a reason for your B&E or are you just trying to start shit?”

“Ugh.” Pops up from the floor a few inches away from him. “Would you just apologize already so we can have fantastic make up sex?”

“What should I apologize for?” His voice is a low growl and if it’s meant to intimidate her, it doesn’t. If it’s meant to turn her on, it does.

“Your insecurity, your uneasiness with our frequent sexual encounters even though they seem to be helping us both thrive in this jarred environment.” Taps a fingertip into the center of his chest and knows the odds are split in whether he kicks her from the room, or whether they have sex.

“You think this is easy for me?” Voice rumbles through her ears, through his teeth clenched. “To rely on this so much, while being terrified of embracing it. You think—”

Softens her hands against his chest, hard and warm and her legs slink forward to press against his. “I think that your insecurities are part of who you are, and if I wasn’t interesting in the aspect of a whole you, I wouldn’t be continuing having trysts with you quite so often.”

“What do you want me to do, Vala?”

“Kiss me, or don’t. But make a bloody choice—”

Lips crash down on hers, whisk away her breath as a hand knits into her hair, another slipping down the curve of her ass to heft her up. Spins her while she giggles against his lips, and then tosses her sideways across the mattress.

With lips roaming down her neck, sucking, nipping lightly, he warns, “don’t touch my porn again.”

Her feet lock around his waist so when he stands, she hooks to him. “I’d never dream of it, Darling, your fantasies run a bit too pedestrian for my tastes.”

 


	41. Day 41

“Which war is this again?” She sits on the end of his bed, on top of a lovely knitted blanket. How do the Tau’ri get such personal gifts from each other? How can she procure such finely crafted goods?

He sits in boxers near the head of the bed, his legs thrown over the side and his hands working into his scarred thigh. Every so often he takes in a deep hiss of air or lets a grunt out before stifling it. “The second world one.”

“How many have there been?” Combs her fingers through her damp hair, recently showered and decided to stop by his room on the way back to hers, then get too sleepy for her room because maybe if he kisses her a certain way or puts on a different war movie the voices will hush up.

He stands, leaning back against the wall using it for support to stretch out the aching muscle. “I don’t know. Thousands.”

“It must hurt,” addresses the television, not him and for a moment he must think she’s talking about war. Her fingers split the back of her hair and she pulls the two portions over separate shoulders. “Your thigh.”

“It always hurts, I just got used to it before—” He grunts, then wraps his lips together to drown it, the craggy scar flexing and running down to his knee.

“It must hurt more now.”

“It does.” His tone indicates irritation, but she can’t tell if it’s at her, where the irritation from anyone is usually directed, or just runoff from the pain.

“I know of a root that might help you, I could ask Samantha to conjure some up if you’d like.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I worked as a deliverer for my city’s apothecary when I was a child.” Waves a finger through one side of her hair separating it into three pieces and then begins a braid starting at her part and running the length of her hair. “It’s more potent in space, I requested it when I was pregnant with Adria because it worked wonders with my backaches.”

When she glances back, he’s watching her tie off the end, and then begin the same action on the opposite side of her head. “What?”

“You’re really good at that.” He plops on the bed behind her crawling forward entranced as she stitches her hair together.

“This is what impresses you.” Sometimes she forgets how different they are. How she would braid her mother’s hair when she fell too ill to care for it. How she usually did it by candlelight because there was no money to pay for electricity.

His fingers ride over the bumps of the braid. “It’s just so flawless. You’re not even looking.”

“Second nature now, I suppose.” Moves to tie off the end, but his hand intercepts, plucking the band from her and tugging at the braid to tie it off.

His fingers tickle her as his hands smooth out and follow the curve of her back downwards. “So, this root? Any side effects.”

“Nothing too serious just—” He tugs the collar of her shirt to the side and starts dropping kisses down the curve of her neck to her shoulder. “Loss of libido, trouble maintaining an erection, perhaps some premature ejac—”

“Pass.” Laughs against her back, his hands travelling up underneath the hem of her shirt, skimming over her hips, up her sides.

“I would understand, Cameron.”

“I wouldn’t.”


	42. Day 42

Desperately tries to remember what she was doing the day before they left aboard the _Odyssey_. Simple things from what she ate for breakfast, to what clothes she was wearing, obviously a black shirt and BDU pants, but which ones.

Doesn’t remember if she helped Samantha with schematics and mathematics equations, she plays dumb with and pretends not to understand. Despite not finishing high school her education is stellar in the first-hand facet.

Maybe she helped Daniel in his lab with translations or the paperwork for the transferal of ancient devices. Is that the day she stole his credit card and went online shopping because she needed new black shirts and no matter who she asked for them, they told her it wasn’t their job and to ask someone else.

She’ll pay him back.

Eventually.

Maybe.

Stares at the ceiling above her bed which flashes in metallics as she twists her head in thought. Has to remember something about the day before but can’t besides leaving behind her favorite hair clip on purpose because she didn’t want to lose it aboard the ship.

That is the last detail she has of her life before.

 

 


	43. Day 43

They’re fighting with spears of some sort, never meant for anything to turn physical, simply trailed him into the workout room to see if he’d be interested in watching a movie. He tossed her the weapon, the weight of which dragged down her arms, a mixture between a hollow wood and a heavy, polished metal.

Then he struck at her, bringing his weapon down hard and she blocked, the force shuddering into her arms.

He jabs at her side, gets a knock in before she swings her spear hitting him sideways, has enough time to reconstruct herself before his next blow comes. He swings high again, the muscles in his arms and shoulders rippling, gorgeous, distracting, but she dodges to her left, rolling with the weapon, crashing it into his ankles.

Flattens to her back, her chest heaving as he uses his weapon as a stilt of sorts keeping him in an upright crouch, his inhalations just as deep as hers, but he wears a very cheeky grin. “What did you wish to converse with me about, Vala Mal Doran?”

“I don’t remember, Muscles.” There’s a wet sheen of sweat spread across her chest and she can feel the bruise on her ribs already blooming.

His chuckle booms through the empty room as he pulls himself to his feet and approaches her, if he wants a round two, he’d better go find Cameron because she’s done, doesn’t even grab for her staff. Instead he offers her his hand, clammy like her own, and helps her to stand.

“So this is how you keep so calm, is it?”


	44. Day 44

The door squeals behind General Landry as he toddles aimlessly into the kitchen, although his demeanor of power hasn’t dissipated, he’s starting to relax around them, she’s seen him once in his jammies, a lovely brown robe and a matching shirt and pant set in blue pinstripes.

He hunts through the random piles of fruit on the counter, then shuffles towards the fridge, all the lovely little metals on his uniform catching in the bright fridge light. “Vala, did Colonel Carter already deliver the groceries for the next few days?”

“Yes, she did.” She’s sitting on the counter, pealing a perfectly ripe apple that she intends to cut up and slather in a cinnamon sugar akin to how her mother used to make when she a small child. It’s what the Tau’ri refer to as comfort food.

He half turns towards her, his eyes scanning the counter of the groceries she’s yet to put away, refusing to let her mind be preoccupied with the reasoning behind her menial and domestic tasks. “You didn’t happen to notice if—”

Using her prowess with a pocket knife, she slices the apple into quarters, the skin a fanciful, edible ribbon. Her eyes scroll up from the sticky, naked fruit in her hand which is quickly browning. “Sir?”

“What’s that?”

Thinks he points to her decorative apple skin ornament, but it’s really to the fragrant dip she’s concocted to the best of her memory. “That’s a cinnamon dip my mother used to make for apples. She’d sort of baste them with a substance similar to butter and then rub the spices into the flesh before baking—”

“It smells exactly like the apple cobbler my grandmother used to make.” Stands idle, perhaps taken aback by nostalgia. Every time she mixes the spices she’s transported back to a time when she couldn’t see the countertops and her mother retrieving a milking stool for her to stand on.

“Would you like one?”

“I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Food is food, General Landry.” Hops down from the counter and places the apple slices in a bucket of ice water in the sink. “If you have it you share it, and if you don’t, you find someone willing to.”


	45. Day 45

She brings Daniel a cup of coffee into the room that’s a book, the one he’s specifically forbade her from entering.

“Vala, what—”

She doesn’t speak a word to him, just sets the mug of coffee at the bottom of the podium and bows out.

After the doors hiss behind her, she hears him yell, “Thanks.”


	46. Day 46

A pile of magazines smacking to the tabletop draws her from her reverie, her afternoon of staring directly into an energy beam and expecting something to change, some aspect of the frozen field to divert to regular time.

Doesn’t know which she fears more, disintegration into space or spending the rest of her life on this vessel.

“I know you like to read a lot of magazines on Earth.” He wears a low, pressed smile, his lips only curling up at the very corners. “And I know you didn’t bring any with you despite me telling you to bring something to occupy your time.”

It’s the way he is, the way she’s come accustomed to knowing him. Defensive and a tad arrogant used as a guise to interact compassionately with her because of her usual attitude towards him, and she’s not even sure she remembers her true intentions towards him.

When she doesn’t answer, he clears his throat, his eyes darting away to avoid hers in awkward contact. “Anywho, I had Sam make these with the Asgardian device so you can at least have a little entertainment.”

 


	47. Day 47

Day 47

“What are these?” She yanks out a set of keys on a ring from within the depths of his side table, her stomach pressing flat into the heavy, blue knitted blanket on top of his bed.

“Those are my keys.” He’s at the other end of the bed fruitlessly working on a load of tumble-dried clothing from a brown wicker hamper. Each piece he folds is pristine in construction, wrinkleless and look identical in folding style.

She can barely get through folding her panties before shoving them all away into the recess of some drawer.

“Keys for what?” Thumb and finger plucking at the ring she jingles them at him when he doesn’t answer quickly enough. Composes herself to kneeling on her knees, the pressure of her body adding unsightly wrinkles to his neatly fashioned bed. “Oh Cameron, are they secret illicit keys?”  

“No.” Chuckles but his face is downturned towards the everlasting mountain of his laundry. She knows the grin, the one he’d slide to her on base, the smirk that meant a secret meeting. “Just house, and car.”

Tsks at him with a roll of her eyes and flops back down in his bed, this time on her back.

“What?”

“You never let me in your car.”

“There’s a reason for that.”

Gathers her hair from underneath her and fans it across his bed, stretching a leg up in the air accentuated with a pointed toe. Watches him watch her and takes pride in her purposeful movements. “And what ever would that be?”

“That it goes really fast and you like to try to grab the wheel every now and again.” Has two more stacks of clothes all in faultless folds.

“You can’t blame a girl for wanting a little bit of fun.”

“No.” The word draws out with his grin as he sets the final shirt down and approaches her from the side of the bed. He bends and places a chaste kiss onto her lips like she’s an unconscious princess in a child’s tale. “But I can blame a girl for trying to kill us.”

Slides her hand up his arm, his shoulder, his neck, pulling him down and kissing him less chaste, more force. He sets her back up, balancing again on her knees again before unhinging from her. “You want to bunk here tonight? We could watch a movie.”

“Sounds delightful.”

He taps her on the bum gently, getting her to scoot to the edge of the bed and immediately ironing out her imperfections with the flats of his hands. “Go get changed into PJs, and I’ll grab the popcorn and meet you back here.”

Leans her head into his side, her forehead pressing against his ribs, feels the sweeping movements of his arms. “I don’t want to go all the way back there; can’t I just borrow something from you?”

“That’s how it starts, isn’t it?” His words seem upset but he’s still smiling, his fingers sliding underneath the hem of her shirt, tickling over her stomach before pulling the material over her head. Expects him to kiss her, to spread her back out over the bed he’s just finished fixing, but he fishes at the stack of clothing for a navy-blue shirt. With a flick of his wrist he unfurls it and directs it over her head.

It’s large on her, but comfy and smells a bit like detergent and a bit like him.


	48. Day 48

The headless statues stand tall in her bed chamber decorated in the finest silks and laces local custom could supply, ornate and unaccusatory.

Wakes up in a cold sweat, Cameron’s navy-blue shirt sticking to her body, riding up underneath her breasts and she can’t catch a breath. Phantom jogging with him down the hallway and a deep inhalation, just one, that expands her lungs.

Completely inflated.

Qetesh wanted the statues, the sex, the fill of man and every hour marked by orgasmic roars.

The sexual flutter between her thighs when Cameron arches an eyebrow or cracks his knuckles, the irreverent rage when simple tasks don’t compliment her ideals, the kind she has to hide, to shower away, to entomb, lest another person see her unequivocal rage, the fires that churn within her, the nails that bore into the soft skin on her palm.

She smashed the heads off of marble statues so no one was there to witness her shame.


	49. Day 49

“Morning Muscles.”

He lugs the bag from the kitchen garbage, expertly double wrapped by none other than herself, towards the Waste Depository Room.

“Good Morning Vala Mal Doran.” Greets without even a groan as he tosses the bag over his shoulder like the fat man who breaks into multiple households and eats up all the cookies during the Tau’ri winter. “I hope sleep sought you well.”

Barely slept at all between nightmares and voices. Cameron wanted a night to himself, which granted she’s more than happy to oblige and have some peaceful time alone, only time alone isn’t exactly peaceful any longer.

“Fine. I believe I figured it out.”

“Figured what out?”

“That us being stuck on this ship, is part of a larger experiment, I mean the Asgardians did just happen to give us the lottery of their entire complied knowledge, what if they’re testing to see if we’re worthy.”

He narrows his eyes at her, tired of her antics, her need to find reason in things that have none, but he bares a grin while tossing the sack of trash into the room as if it was a pillow. “Perhaps there is no reasoning behind our stasis. Perhaps it is just destiny.”

“Forgive the implication, Muscles, but I’m destined for far greater things than being stuck on this ship for the rest of my life.”

 


	50. Day 50

Pokes around the gathering of little bowls lined on the counters. Tiny little bowls used for housing spices until they’re added to the meal, a meal that already smells delicious with cut onions, garlic, and potatoes. Never knows how Tau’ri men are so good at cooking, on most of the planets she’s taken residence on it’s purely the woman’s job to procure and prepare the meals.

It’s a welcome exchange.

When she tips the lid of a metal pot on the stove, he smacks at her fingers with the plush cotton of an oven mitten. “No peeking, you’ll ruin your appetite.”

“Sorry, Sir.” She swallows a little off put by the action, perhaps the normalcy of it, the suddenness of it, the implication that she was somehow disobeying when she was just curious.

She’s always curious.

“Carolyn used to do the same thing when she was a kid.”

He takes the oven mitten in his hand, not with his hand inside, and fully lifts the frail, tin lid from the pot. Steam explodes into the air, sizzling onto the red stovetop element. With a big wooden spoon, he stirs the pot, first counter clockwise, then as an eight, then clockwise, before adding in the teensy bowls of herbs.

“She’d come home from school and run into the kitchen, her hands turning over any potlid she could.”

She leans back into the counter, watching the stack of bowls grow and teeter until it threatens to fall over. Wants to volunteer to rid them at the sink, but her fingers still sting from the whack of cotton. “Do you miss her?”

The smile washes from his face and he gets very invested in the type of shapes he’s stirring. His throat bobs when he swallows and shares, “I try not to think about her. I’ve missed so much of her life already. But I think you know how that is.”

 

 


	51. Day 51

They have sex in the communal shower which is a bit juvenile and a bit risqué considering anyone could walk in on them at any moment, but it’s after midnight which means Teal’c and the General are sound asleep, and Daniel and Sam are too lost in their work.

He tries to lift her again, but he’s either overtired or the slipperiness of water mingling with the soap and shampoo causes him to lose his hold and the look of panic on his face makes her break out into laughter. A hearty chest laugh, deep and booming, resonating throughout the room and definitely alerting anyone taking a walk by to what they’re doing.

“Vala, shh,” he pleads, his eyes wide and innocent as she continues to chortle until his mouth covers hers, his tongue clearing out her unvoiced laughter until she moans, tightening her grip around his neck and allowing him to lift a single leg to his hip.


	52. Day 52

Day 52

“Do you know what my mother told me when I was younger?” Folds her legs on either side of his chest, her ankles pressing inwards near his knees.

Fingers tickle over her back as he curls forward, his lips motoring over the dip of her hip, the plain of her stomach, upwards until halted by frilly bra fabric. The words, his voice, are unlike the others piling, twisting in her head. Instead fuzzy, soft, tangible against her skin, thrumming through her body. “What’d she tell you?”

“That the cracks in concrete and roads.” Arcs back as the staccato breath from his nostrils fans the dive between her breasts, and the straps of her bra become flaccid. Her voice drops, as gasp, as her hips shift over him. “You know the ones that look like spider’s webs?”

“Yeah, I know the kind.” Tongue trails along her collarbone, teeth scratching lightly at the skin as his hands fall back, tracing the curve of her body, slipping underneath her panties to skim over her.  

“She told me they were the Gods trying to walk as men.” Breath hitches again as his fingers find her, as her hands push at the band of his boxer, and she wallows in the silence, in the heavy breaths, the smack of lips, the hum of an omnipresent engine. “That they could have anything they desired, but all they desired was mortality.”

“Your momma sounds like a smart lady.” Guides her towards him, nuzzling, suckling, and it was never this way before, the buildup, the construction of their bodies.

“It wasn’t until I was a God myself, that I understood the full intention of her words.”

Even on a timeless ship, things can change.  


	53. Day 53

“It hurts Cameron.” Her spine twists as her body curls around him, her legs cycling the blankets to puddle at the end of the bed. Knots away from him, and his hand, his heel, digs hard at the flesh on her lower back trying to find the masticated muscles, thumb pad presses and drags from her spine to her hip but it doesn’t help.

It doesn’t help.

When he removes his hand, she flips back to him, her head landing against the pillow with a thud. He leans back, returning with two pain relievers, and a cup of water. Helps her sit against the burning, the biting in her pelvis and chug down the water. Shoves the cup back into his hand and checks her hips to the side.

“It hurts.”

“You just got to give the pills a chance to work.” His hand consumes her pelvis, fingers trekking from hip to hip, tuck into the top of her panties. “Want me to get you off? That seems to help.”

“It’s worth a go.” Nods and writhes back into the pillows as he yanks her panties down to her ankles.

“Well, don’t act too into it.” His thumb already circling her when his mouth covers her own.


	54. Day 54

He’s right again, the sex, the orgasms, help the cramps dissipate throughout her body. It helps until it doesn’t anymore. His breathe hitches while he’s inside of her, one of her legs tossed over his shoulder and one of her fingers hooking into the side of his mouth. His thrusts slow to a stop, his fingers grow lax around the skin on her thigh and his pupils stop dilating. “Vala, I don’t think I can—”

“Cameron—you can’t—” Raises her head from the pillows, her fingers swirling around the back of his ears, locking their eyes. “Can’t you just—” Normally wouldn’t be so selfish, okay maybe just a tad selfish, but she needs the pain relief, just a few more thrusts, just—

His mouth crashes over hers, brash and fighting, tongues mingling, teeth cracking. He pumps his hips against hers, the movement so fast almost liquid and she sits out a beat or two finding the rhythm and joining him, her head thrown back again, his mouth clamping down over one of her breasts.

It doesn’t take much more before the momentum builds in the hollow of her stomach, before she shudders around him, an intense stab of pain flares within her before diffusing with the rest of the spasms.

She pants, catching her breathe while he rolls off her, yanking on his boxers and his sweat pants despite still being semi-hard. “Cameron—”

“I need to go.” Won’t look at her because his uneasiness is almost palpable, much like the euphoric aftermath of not dealing with intense cramping.

Doesn’t say another word to her, doesn’t give her a kiss goodbye, and if she were to construct herself, toss her arms around his neck and offer to take care of at least one of his problems, he would probably toss her off because he goes through these intense bouts of introverted activity, of being moody and broody and needing to be alone.

So she lets him go, because she can only accept him as he is, gentlemanly enough to get her off before he runs.


	55. Day 55

She’s not responsible for taking the trash to the incinerator, which is a good thing because if the last few weeks have been any indication at all, they’re going to be making more trash than necessary. However, whoever fills the trash to the brim is responsible for taking it to the waste depository room for Cameron or Muscles to dispose of. This task is both disgusting and fruitless because it seems as though every time she’s on kitchen duty, someone’s left the bin full for her to change and take. So, she’s taking to mashing it down with her precious SGC-issued boots, leaving the bottom plump, full, and sour smelling.

It worked for her last two kitchen duties, but this time someone hasn’t bothered to switch it out and the rubbish is piled too high to stomp

Unless she gets up on the counter and—

“Vala.” Daniel booms as he walks into the kitchen, the door is starting to squeak and that will drive her absolutely mad if no one fixes it. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Well, Daniel.” Tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and drifts her eyes away from him. “If you must know I’m smooshing down the garbage.”

“Why?”

“So it’s easier for me to carry to—”

He opens the fridge door, surrounded in a bit of white light and perhaps that’s what he looked like as an ascended. “Fine. Whatever. Just make sure you wipe off the counter when you’re done. We don’t need to prepare food in the stuff you’ve been stepping in.”


	56. Day 56

There’s a knock at her door and she knows who it’s not, because he doesn’t knock anymore. Supposes she’s no worse because she never knocked, even when they were back on Earth and having a little excursion together, would waltz right into his dorm and tear him away from whatever he’d deemed was more important than waiting for her.

“Come in,” beckons from her bed where paints her toenails a deep scarlet. Knee of the unpainted foot bent and used for support while she takes the teensy little brush and swipes the colors across her toes.  

The door whooshes and Samantha steps in with a clipboard, ignoring her awkward position, ignoring the mess strewn all around her room from not caring. “Hey, I’m doing the toiletries order today, is there anything you need zapped up?”

Caps the polish and sets it precariously on the edge of a very full bedside table, waving her free hand at her red toes to dry. When Samantha took her for pedicures, not very long ago but in a different lifetime before her father waltzed into her life again and she felt cold water in her lung again, she thought it was an idiotic Tau’ri tradition, like most of the things they do. Putting color on nails that will eventually just chip off is a waste of time, money, and resources. But when they went to the salon, she acted like a child, enamored with a wall of color and hesitant to set her feet in the bath.

When the woman charged with painting her feet retrieved them from the water, she felt a strong prescience of Qetesh, of servants preening and cleaning her, fabricating beautiful silks for her to wear, washing and scrubbing away the sweat and spit and semen from her hair and skin.

She bucked back, and the woman looked at her with a fraction of concern. Samantha glanced over, placed her cool fingers against the chair arm and over her skin asking if she was okay. Then she laughed and played it off as being ticklish.

Yanks open the side table drawer and retrieves a scrap of paper. “I made a list yesterday, just in case I forgot.”

Forgets the simple things.

Leaning causes red nail polish to smear across her comforter.


	57. Day 57

Found him in his little Tau’ri plane perched in the cockpit like naughty children who break into their parents’ automobiles and pretend to drive. They never let her drive on Earth, but she has a license for all ground transportation valid on many planets, they just never gave her the chance to showcase her skills.

He sweettalked her, as he usually does, explains every time it’s not her, it’s him and his horrible coping method.

The more he tells her the less she believes it.

The more afraid she is that he’ll sudden get bored of her, as one of her ex-husbands did, but perhaps he’s evolved enough to not attempt to kill her.

The cockpit is very tight, but they make room for her somehow, and she perches on the rim of the seat between his parted thighs, her own legs pinching between the console and him. His voice is hot and rough in her ear as he explains the controls, his hand on a large shift which they’re both too above making a crass joke about.

“—too much speed and the wings can catch on a thermal or clouds and it’ll ricochet you around.” 

Nuzzles the side of her head into his jaw and is rewarded when she feels the grin grow on his face. “I once flew a stitched together cargo ship through low atmosphere and was able to steer it through the cloud front of a planet only to crash into the treeline.”

“You get out okay?”

Shrugs, but rolls her shoulders back into him, leaning, resting her head at his collarbone. “More or less.”

He chuckles against her temple, presses a kiss there, rubs his hands against the tops of her thighs. “I always forget the exciting life you lived before.”

“Not very exciting and definitely not my life.”

“I mean your experiences.” Kisses her several times in the row, popping lips against the skin on her neck and she shies away with a laugh. “I think we always underestimate you.”

“I think that’s a dangerous thing to do.” Snags his jaw and angles it down towards her, giving him a proper kiss.

“Me too.”

 

 


	58. Day 58

“You got that one wrong.” Leans over his shoulder while loudly biting into an apple, some of the juice soaking through the sleeve of his jacket. She takes another bite, stretching further over the arm of the chair and tapping the symbol. “That one too.”

“Thanks so much.” Hands flit around his body shooing her back like some pesky insect. “But I don’t remember asking for your help.”

“You’ve just confused the order of the symbols.” Swallows the wad of crushed apples and tosses the core into the bin a few feet away. “It’s a very common mistake especially with all the pressure from—”

“They’re not wrong.”

Hums and purses her lips, her eyes rolling just a bit at him. “Except they are, Darling.”

“Vala.” Rips off his glasses, his hand smothering over his eyes and nose. In a terse voice he adds, “I’ve been fluent in Goa’uld since—”

“Daniel.” Smacks her hands down on the desk next to him, demanding he give her eye contact. “I’ve had one of those slimy bastards in my head for almost two decades.”

“You can’t use that as an excuse every time.”

“Then you can’t argue that book knowledge is superior to firsthand experience.” His mouth hooks open, aghast at her suggestion, and when he doesn’t rebuff her, she taps a finger to the first symbol. “This one is wrong too.”

Then she leaves him to ruminate.


	59. Day 59

“Vala?”

Calls to her among the din of a fog that follows her around. She wears voices as helmets. They act as insulation keeping her from actively participating in escaping the simultaneously moored and unmoored vessel. Keep her from interacting with her crew, her team, her friends, the ones that slowly fray the tightly wound braid the voices wove during the prior night of sleeplessness.

“Vala?”

Calls again, his boots clomping over the metallic floors and reverberating through the ground which she sits upon. Behind the bed, the comforter drudged up and around her, shawled around her head, acting as a sieve for true and false conversations.

“What the hell are you doing?”

The clomping stops before her. Hands pinned to his hips, he stares at her as if she’s a naughty child, which she very well might be, and she wishes she has the strength to make the innuendo, but instead her tired head just hangs, and she searches for a fever at her forehead with the back of her hand.

“Voices.”

“All right, come here.” Helps her up with dry fingertips under her arms.

Sits on the side of the bed, the voices swirling around like flakes of snow in a strong gust, or water around in an eddy, thinks he says something to her and she narrows her eyes trying to decipher his words. He crouches before her, touching the side of her face and his voice carries elongated over the small area between them.

“You need music, or tv, or something.”

Flips the television on to channel after channel of static, black ants scurrying across a snow-filled screen, but then engages the DVD of the billionth war movie she’s seen in the last two months. The explosions, the screams, the guns are enough to silence the crowd in her head.

Still crouching beside the bed, he pulls himself up when she begins to recline. “That good?”

“Yes.” It’s a bare whisper as she guides him up and beside her, his body scooping against hers, arms tucking around her chest protective as fire embroils the screen and Qetesh—Qetesh would—only, she’s not. “Yes.”


	60. Day 60

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Two Month Anniversary!

The clock in the main room, the living room or rumpus room or various other monikers under the many different labels of only a six-person crew, has stopped. Cannot be wound, does not require batteries, has simply ceased to preform its main function and remains with two stationary hands facing out from the highest wall.

Time has stopped.

Truly stopped.

And she has no one to inform.


	61. Day 61

Strolls down on the _Odyssey’s_ lowest level, she hasn’t done too much exploring down here, but knows this is where the brig is, as the ship has the same floorplan as the _Prometheus_ where Daniel imprisoned her.

This is also where the incinerator is, where Cameron and Muscles take a jaunt to once a week to rid them of their steadily collecting waste. There’s a storage room with four crates full of popcorn kernels, and many of the engineering rooms are located down here as well. It’s quiet with a little bit of hiss from valves releasing every few seconds, and that’s why she likes to take her time.

Finishes the banana she’s eating, tossing the peel directly into the mouth of the incinerator, barely opening the door to do so. When she turns the corner, her boots slip on the slick metal surface, her feet fly up, her bum falls down and water immediately drenches down the backside of her sweatpants.

Slapping at the wall, she constructs herself into a half standing position. Rivers of icy water run through her legs, high enough to rush over the toes of her boots.

Sloshing down the hallway she trails the water to find it dripping from the seam of a sealed door.

“Samantha?” Coms up from the incineration room, the glow of the flames dancing against the wall, but her toes squishing within her boots.

“Vala, why are you—”

Her whereabouts and reasoning for them are unimportant to the situation, so she skips the context. “I believe there’s a malfunction in the main water valve.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s several inches of water and it is still rising.”

“The freshwater that circulates throughout the ship could somehow be diverted back into the plumbing room, can you release pressure in the pipe?”

“I can try.”

Steps away from the com as Samantha still speaks to her, trying to tell her the proper way to turn a dial, but she doesn’t have the time to be pleasantly polite as the water now threatens to pour into the partition separating the incineration room from the corridor.

The pipe is located a few feet away from the enclosed, but weeping plumbing room doors. It’s large and round and purple with little rivulets of recycled water ribboning down and splashing into the collecting sea.

She easily locates the ridged valve and gives it a sharp twist to the right, only to have it pop off the in her hand. A drop of water slides down her forehead as her eyebrows first crease at the dial, and then at the groaning behind the doors.

Wades sloppily back to the incineration room, water now at the middle of her shin, and coms back up to Samantha. “Shut off the electricals.”

“What?”

“Turn it off. Turn it off.”

The doors burst, flying at the wall where she once stood fighting with the valve, and a wave of water floods the level.

 

 


	62. Day 62

Day 62

“Vala.”

Her name rouses her from where she’s nestled atop of a large component cabinet. It’s thankfully nonelectrical as three quarters of it is submerged in water. She’s been marooned up here for the better part of a last night and well into this morning, unsure if the water carries any electrical current. Her arm and hits the ceiling with a bang, and her legs stretch out before her, boots heavy and waterlogged, pulling down on her ankles and stiff knees.

“Vala.”

She did hear her name. “In here.”

“Where’s here?”

“Electrical Room C”

The wading sound, the sloshing of water grows closer and eventually Cameron ducks through the doorway, a large flashlight rotating in his hands searching for her.

“Marco.”

“Up here.”

His chuckle isn’t one of amusement, seeing her beached atop of the cabinet, but one of relief, it’s briefly alarming that she knows the difference. “Now what are you doing up there?”

“I didn’t know if Samantha was able to turn off the systems quickly enough.” Pulls her legs back in, afraid he might yank her down.

“She did, it’s safe.”

“Alright.”

“Okay.” Water ripples from his body and his legs kick quickly beneath him to help him stay afloat.

“Sam needs to vent this level, so we should be getting—” He juts a thumb behind him and whistles, still grinning at her.

“Of course.”

Another few seconds pass without her moving to jump and he lowers the flashlight to be level with the water. “Problem?”

They’re so far beyond her making up some tawdry lie about the water or being exhausted and unable to paddle. “I can’t swim.”

Her body just doesn’t naturally float and she wonders if it has anything to do with Qetesh.

Expects him to bravado it up, answer that he’ll do the swimming for both of them and she doesn’t have to worry which wouldn’t give her any motivation or any help. Instead he reassures her.

“We don’t have to swim for very long, and the hallway isn’t as deep as it is in here.” He hooks the flashlight back against his belt, submerging it, and the way the light dances over the water is enthralling. “Can you hop down to me?”

“I’ll sink.”

“I’ll catch you.”

“Then I’ll sink us both.”

“Humor me.”

“You humor me.”

“Vala,” sighs into his hand, and then holds his arms out again, waiting for her. “I promise once we get upstairs and dry, I’ll humor you in anyway you want.”

She tumbles off the top of the cupboard like a sack full of rocks and hits the water. Just as she thinks she’s going under; his hands clasp against her sides and he hauls her back to the surface.

“You caught me.”

“I caught you.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

“You’ll have to give me more credit next time.”  He taps her on the bum, drifting her through the doorway and up the small slope to the hallway. She’s able to stand in the hip deep water and reaches back to yank him from the submersion of the doorway. They’re both soaked and cold, and she shudders back into him, his freezing hands rubbing fruitlessly against her arms to heat her with no friction.

“When you found out I was still down here.” Her jaw trembles parsing the words in ways she doesn’t want. “Did you go a bit mad?”

He presses against her, still trying to warm her, and his breath tickles behind her ear. “I rampaged.”


	63. Day 63

“Do you remember the fireflies?”

“What fireflies.”

His head lies cushioned against her bare stomach, and her fingers alternate from tracing the side of his face, to the bristles growing along his chin and throat, to the softer hairs in his eyebrows. “The multicolored ones on that planet where it rained a lot. Where the air was very thick.”

“The ones where the village people started going off on you and Sam?”

Her hand stills on his face as she once again envisions the dank prison where she was kept for two days. The shackles were the heaviest she experienced. “I’d forgotten about that part.”

“Hey.” Grab her wrist and presses one of her fingers to his lips. “You okay?”

The sweating walls, her sweating skin, fighting off the guard every time he came to ‘deliver’ her meal, and when he left, first with bruises and then broken bones, he always left with her morsel of food. The rust of the cuffs at her wrist irritating and she had to get a needle in her arm, it stung but Daniel held her hand with almost no complaints. “It’s just not my favorite memory.”

“I’m sure.”

“I have more that are far worse.”

“I’m sure.”

He stares up at her like he wants to continue, to unravel all the sordid lies she’s told that aren’t really lies but just aren’t believable for the truth.

It will not happen.

She doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to trust anyone in that way, bloom her personality and be accepted by another. So instead she dips her head and brushes her lips teasingly against the point of his nose. “You know what I do remember about that day?”

“What?” He pulls her forward a bit, laughing into her mouth at the awkward kiss, the awkward stance.

“I remember a very good-looking macho army Colonel bursting through the blasted stone that I’d been staring at for the last two days, and whisking me to safety.”

“Nice of Sam to do that.”

Ignores his joke, still leaning over him, her hair hanging and purposefully tickling his cheeks. “I remember he broke the heavy shackles from around my wrists, and he carried me over the embankment because I was too exhausted to climb myself, even though it got us separated from the others.”

“You were too thin, your skin was gray.”

She fell in and out of consciousness in his arms, but his voice kept pleading with her to talk to him, to jab at him, to make some demand of him.

Until she told him to stop talking so much.

“You gave me your jacket because they took mine.”

“You always looked better in it.”

“You gave me all the rations you had even though we didn’t know how long we’d be lost for.”

“My mom would’ve kicked my ass if I didn’t.”

She huffs out a laugh, his head bouncing on her stomach with the motion, her head withdrawing from his, and when he flips over on his stomach, questioning eyebrows falling flat on his face, she draws in her knees to her chest, not entirely vulnerable, but not unforgiving either.

Doesn’t expect him understand her transition, but his hand caresses the side of her face, “I did it because it was you, and if the same thing happened tomorrow, I would do it again.”


	64. Day 64

“Ow.” He shouts from across the rumpus room, his hand flying to his jaw and the bag of peanuts he was munching on clatters to the ground.

Concerned and bored, she steps to him as he sort of leans against the back of the couch. “What’s the matter, darling?”

“I think I chipped a tooth.” The words are mottled, spoken with a fat tongue in the crown of a molar.

Touches the side of his face, her hand coating his as she turns his head towards her. “Well open your mouth and let me see.”

“Since when did you become a licensed dentist?”

“Daniel, you and I both know that I’m not a licensed anything.” His chin in the crook between her thumb and forefinger. “Now just open your mouth.”

Rolls his eyes but complies, stretching his jaw wide. After a few moments of her examination he questions with an unmoving tongue, “is it chipped?”

Leans back, raising her eyebrows a tad and being honest with him. “I don’t know, I couldn’t see a thing.”

“Vala.” Harrumphs away, stomping out of the room and down the hall possibly to Samantha who knows way more about Tau’ri teeth and physiology to be able to tell him that he has a cavity on his back molar.  


	65. Day 65

“How do you get that to grow so wonderfully?” She rolls the soft petal of a beautiful purple flowered plant between her fingers. It’s healthy and vibrant and thriving, and might be the only thing on the ship, save for Landry’s quarters, that is doing so.

“Huh?” Sam places her pen behind her ears, nodding her head up from her pad of equations. “Oh, the flower? Landry gave it to me.”

“Yes, but how is it growing without any sunlight?” She presses herself against the window, angling her head in all directions to make sure there isn’t a well-placed sun near them, and she could’ve been sunbathing this entire time.

“I don’t know? Do you know what the Ori energy beam is made of?”

“No idea, why?”

“Maybe it has some of the same properties of energy as a sun.”

“Would that be useful in escaping?” Wants to add ‘from this hellhole’ but doesn’t have the heart to do so.

Sam plucks the pen back up, seemingly making a note to check something for later, but adds, “where I’m currently at in my equations, no it doesn’t.”


	66. Day 66

The credits begin to roll over the black background and one of them flips the light back on. She’s sitting on the floor before the couch, between Cameron and Muscles, with Daniel taking his usual place in the large armchair.

“Well?” Cameron poses the question and leaves it hanging when she doesn’t answer as she’s unaware if he’s talking to her or leaving it as a question to the room.

She slips another partially popped kernel into her mouth, the saltiness cracking and stinging her lips. Then he nudges her rather harshly, his knee bouncing against her shoulder.

“Well what?”

“What did you think?” Daniel leans forward, his elbows on his knees and his gaze aiming around Muscles’s large, blocking shins.

Another salty half kernel slides over her tongue and when she crunches down it doesn’t crack as easily as the others. “About?”

While Daniel leans back in the chair with a rather dramatic huff and a hand washing over his face, Muscles leans forward. “It was your first viewing of Star Wars, was it not?”

“Yes.”

“And what was your opinion.”

“Not entirely believable, is it?” The kernels roll around inside the bowl as she sets it down on the edge of the coffee table they slid to the side to accommodate her. It’s so hard for her to sit through a whole film. So long and they dredge on. “If you were fans of real galactic adventures, you should have informed me, and I would have hijacked the nearest cargo ship.”   


 


	67. Day 67

She spends a lot of time in an alcove off one of the main hallways by Samantha’s lab. It’s just big enough for her to squish into and listen to the heart of the _Odyssey_ as climate control comes on, as oxygen regenerates in a whir and a flash, as army boots clunk and running shoes patter, as conversations happen with jokes and a back clap or perhaps an argument arises.

Sits with her legs bent awkwardly and a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and feels like she’s haunting the ship.


	68. Day 68

Horrible noises come from Samantha’s lab, and as she runs to the doorway to ensure her friend, and their only method off this godforsaken ship, is okay, Daniel stands in the way. His smile is wistful, and she wriggles her head in beside his body to sneak a peek at Samantha dragging a long stick over a big, brown, oddly-shaped something or other.

“What is that?” She whispers angling her head to the side and trying to understand the sounds, the wails.

“It’s a musical instrument.” Daniel answers and rests a hand on her back.

She darts her eyes to him, but he is too invested in Samantha murdering several strings to notice or care about the contact. When she straightens her back, he shifts over, so she can stand beside him to watch. His arm curls around her shoulders and almost as an afterthought he adds, “I’m glad she found a way to relax, I was worried about her.”

 


	69. Day 69

Water cascades down her back as she arches into the warm stream, her hands clasp onto the slick cool metal of the shower tree holding steady as he enters her, his hands grasping her hips with hard finger tips and yanking her back towards him.

She groans as the water tumbles off her, re-wetting the hair that dried cold clumps and she bounces with his friction, with the pace he sets rolling his hips up into her. Stands on her tiptoes and the muscles in her thighs, behind her knees and down to her shins start to knot with the stretch, with the pressure.

But the pressure.

Oh, the pressure.

The pressure is euphoric, and she bites down on her bottom lip while his hand dares to stray from her hip and gathers the water droplets hanging off her stomach. Second hand roams, trails her spine upward, tosses her heavy hair from her back, and pulls her up to stand.

Pulls out.

It was her idea, he doesn’t like this.

Slams in.

Fine with the sex, with the shower sex they’re trying to perfect into a form of art but doesn’t like the stance.

Wants to watch her.

See her.

It’s endearing.

It’s dangerous.


	70. Day 70

They’re watching the most ridiculous military movie and she’s barely following it. It’s boring. What isn’t boring are his hands drawing lazy circles on her stomach, tickling down her sides and making her breath hitch. He’s turned sideways journaling, and she’s leaning against the bulk of his body facing his tv.

“Am I in the army?”

His pen stops scratching as he glances up, first at the flickering light from the television and then down to her. “What?”

“Well I’m on SG-1, so does that mean I’m in the army?” Holds his hand in both of hers, sliding her fingertips down his and gauging the size difference.

He never answers her.


	71. Day 71

“Do you require assistance, Vala Mal Doran?” Muscles stops walking, which is what she didn’t want him to do, and stands with his arms clutched behind him, watching her as she traces a hand over the slit in the metal doorway.

“What’s behind these big reinforced doors?”

“Those are the doors to the armory.”

Cranes her head back to gauge him, to see if his curiosity stems from her own, or worse, her intentions. “Why’s it all locked up?”

“Because there is no need for zats or sidearms on a timeless vessel.”

But there is because it’s interesting enough to keep her distracted.

She has the experience, has the knowhow, and ability to crack through the doors if the five other occupants would just leave her alone.

Even as a last resort she could use the ventilation shafts.

“Sounds…interesting.”

“Leave the armory alone, Vala Mal Doran, unless you feel able to face General Landry.”

“You’re right.”

He’s not.

“I’ll leave it alone.”

She won’t.

But he seems to already know this, or he’s fluent in the language of her inner monologue swimming in a sea of voices. “Indeed.”


	72. Day 72

She reclines on the couch, idle hands pricking and pulling at a snagged thread in her shirt. Tilts her head, glancing back over the arm to Samantha sitting in the armchair beneath the pole lamp, her face drastically serious as she flips between loose leaves of paper. “Do you remember that planet that we visited on our first mission after the firefly planet?”

“Uh—” The papers fan out in Samantha’s hands, crinkle and ball in her fists. “What firefly planet?”

“Sorry, I forgot you weren’t there for that.” Hangs her head fully from the side of the couch arm, Samantha now upside down. “The one where we were taken prisoner for two days.”

“Oh, I remember that planet.”

“But do you remember the one after?”

Gives in with a forced grin and sets the papers on the occasional table. “Refresh my memory?”

“The one with all those gorgeous half-naked men flouncing around on the beach.” If she closes her eyes tight enough she can still feel the warmth of the sun against her cheeks as she bounded down the sandy hillside and towards the sea before the rest of them caught up to her and refused to let her even soak her feet. Daniel can explore any ruins he wishes, and Teal’c can go off on random vendettas, but she can’t dip a big toe into salt water.

Samantha’s grin turns genuine and she darts her eyes down to the unorganized pile of paper. “I vaguely remember that planet.”

“I wish I’d gotten a chance to put my feet in the water.” Hooks a finger around her pigtails and yanks them out from between the couch arm and her shoulders.

“From what I remember, you had a conversation with the ocean.”

They stood behind her, back over the first sand dune, lined along the ridge, just watching her conversate with the sea. “That wasn’t a conversation, that was a lecture.”

“Why did you do—whatever that was?” Samantha leans forward, her elbows on her knees, the furrowing of her brow turning into a second mouth.

“Because the waves take away the words.”


	73. Day 73

“I miss the rain.”

“What?”

They lay half in, half out of bed, sort of tumbled together as if the ship hit a spot of turbulence.

“Do you remember when I went to Washington?”

“I remember you tagging along because Jackson would have bit it if you didn’t.”

“That was the last time I felt rain.”

She got her own hotel room for the night, and although they locked her in, she slipped out of the second storey window, and crept into the lot intent on stealing one of the many terrain vehicles parked there. As she did, a familiar grumble rolled in the sky and as the first drops fell, she started to feel queasy and knew the bracelet’s bonds wouldn’t hold out.  

Reluctantly, she shuffled back into the hotel, now feeling utterly exhausted, and asked the desk staff to ring up Daniel’s room. He came down, grumpy and glowering, experiencing the same ill effects from the bracelet. When he laughed at her misfortune, ignoring his own, it almost felt like a gloat, then she realized it wasn’t a poke at her idiocy trying to escape when she shackled them together, but rather her copping hair and clothing.

Doesn’t know why, but the Tau’ri view rain as such a chore, an inconvenience, whereas she grew up praying for it to downpour.

For fresh water.

For crops.   

“I miss the rain.” A reiteration, another prayer of just an aspect of change, for a single unadulterated drop to slide across her skin unwarranted by the turn of a shower knob or slipping salty from her eye.

Just for something unexpected to occur in the stagnant habitat stunted inside this ship.

“Why?”

Rubs her cheek to his shoulder, and should she bother to explain, he still wouldn’t care.


	74. Day 74

“What’s wrong with you?” Daniel lifts his nose from a book, halting his speed walk through the living room, as he calls it, to observe her form thrown onto the couch.

“I’m despondent.”

He sighs loudly, it might be a groan, and swings around the arm of the couch between her and the coffee table to have a proper conversation with her, but with Daniel it’s more likely a proper belittling. “We’re all stuck on the same ship.”

“Yes, Daniel, I’ve been widely aware of that fact for the last two and a half months.” Pushes her body up, elbows digging into the very pliable material on the couch cushions.

“So, what’s the problem.”

“The problem is I didn’t bring my favorite hair clip.”

“Are you—Are you kidding me?”

“What?” Cycles her eyes up to his and finds him staring down at her with disdain.

“We have real problems, Vala.”

“Obviously.” She doesn’t move and he doesn’t move. His book is safely tucked underneath his arm and his glasses might be fogging up a bit, but she can’t tell from the way the light hits them. “I’m trying to distract myself by worrying about something I miss.”

“That’s completely—”

“You all have family, have friends, have lives outside the base, whereas the only thing I can hold dear are material affects.” Closes her eyes against the inset lights and if she focuses enough the voices in her head turn into the steady ebb and flow of the salty ocean, the one she voices her regrets, fears, and rage at. “Before you judge me, perhaps you’ll take that to heart.”


	75. Day 75

It’s a surprise.

Not exciting, but more of a surprise that he did anything at all.

Sits with him inside a makeshift tent he’s constructed using his blankets and mattress after one of his room deconstructions following a lucid and remorseful period. His bouts of uneasiness are coming few and far between, but the actions needed to quell the outbreaks grow more violent. Half of his personal belongings have been incinerated and the large, heavy navy-blue blanket canopies over them, guarding the words they don’t say.

Thinks they both want to speak but nether has the courage or strength needed to start a sentence.

Instead she beckons him to her with a curling finger, allowing her own shawled blanket to puddle at her back.

His grin says nothing and yet enough, and his lips speak throes against the skin on her neck, her collarbone, her hollowed chest. The voices in her head quiet at the euphoric feel of his hand between her legs, and hush as she opens to him.

The silence is deafening when he thrusts into her at the right angle, making her come with little to no effort, tickling her back down with huffs of hot breath, and kneaded hips.

He’s always had a way with words.


	76. Day 76

The door hinges release a high-pitched squeak.

Learning how to tell people from their shoes, from their movements. Getting to know footsteps, the time between, the heaviness, the resonating scuff. Tried to learn back on the mountain, but there were too many people to sort through, too many interruptions to allow her to concentrate.  

Now she’s has all the time in the world, existing in a universe fit for only six people.

Five others with very different gaits, with difference urgencies and urges, who grow fatigued at different times and the sound of combat boots on metal has never been so entertaining because she’ll take it over the judgements, the memories in her head, any day.

Whacks the dough with a pair of wooden spoons and if she blinks quickly enough, she’s dangerously pregnant standing in a kitchen not her own, in a galaxy not her own, wearing a peasant dress with flour stains on her cheek.

She always beat the bread too much and it came out tough instead of tender.

He always beat the word of the Ori against his chest and it stained his caring heart.

“I’ve tied the bag for you already, Muscles.” Speaks in gritting teeth and tight jaw as she turns the dough, sore palms of her hands pressing down like she’s massaging the raw muscles in Cameron’s thighs.

Expects him to eject an ‘indeed’ or a word of gratitude, pick up the large bundle of trash, and be on his merry way, but when she doesn’t hear the heavy footsteps with the longest gap between, she turns and observes him observing her.

“Something the matter, Darling?”

“Trying to discern what you’re preparing for dinner.”

“The dough will be freshly baked bread the as for the rest of it, I suppose you’ll just have to wait and see.” Winks with an angled mouth, dramatic in flare, and tucks the loose sides of dough underneath.

“It has been many years since I’ve partaken in fresh bread.”  His step forward takes longer than his others, pensive in thought, half wanting to retreat as he stretches over her shoulder while she cuts slits into the top of the loaf. “This is very artisanal. I had never judged you as a baker.”

“Well, most people are too busy judging me for other things to notice.”

 


	77. Day 77

“What is that?”  Daniel pokes around the kitchen counter where she’s set her cup.

“That’s my tea.” Clarifies and dunks her hands back into the scalding sink water, pristine and white with a frothy bubbled top. She scrubs at the dishes trying to get maple syrup off from the leftover waffles Muscles cooked up for breakfast.

She should be irked by the stuck on, sugary mess, but she’s come accustomed to the blast of raw sugar with her morning meal, even when they have eggs, she douses them in syrup, much to the chagrin of everyone else.

“It’s almost black, what type of tea is it?”

Removes her hands, pink and sensitive from the water, stacking the dishes in the rack for him to dry. “Just a mixture of leave and herbs I’ve balanced over the years.”

“What’s this squirrel thing?” Examines the tiny squirrel perched on the edge of her cup, tail dipping into the hot water dispersing the flavors into her tea.

She places another clean but slightly chipped dish onto the rack. “Oh, isn’t that precious? It’s a diffuser. I ordered it when my old one broke.”

“You ordered it.” He’s giving her his disbelieving expression, his glasses low on his nose and his eyes staring at her from over the rims.

Nods and directly hands him the third dish because he doesn’t seem to understand the concept of drying.

“To a military base.”

Raises her eyebrows at him as he simply holds the dishes in his bare, untowelled hands. “Well that hardly seems important now, does it?”

 


	78. Day 78

“Will you slow down?” Trails his bouncing steps over the metal floors, the thunk thunk thunk that she can now hear from the other side of the ship, can tell by the time of day where he is. After lunch he bounds through the lower engineering levels, and then after dinner, he makes his turn around to the top conference rooms and offices. Late night it’s usually the dorm area threatening to wake everyone up with the clomp of his sneakers.

Wakes her up with the clomping of his sneakers.

Woke her up last night with his tongue curling around the rim of her ear, bristled her awake immediately and when she stiffened trying to place herself, he settled behind her, hand pushing her shirt up, trailing over her stomach, sucking harshly on the groove her neck.

“Princess—” He spins at the mouth of the hallway, his hands thrown up in exasperation and a cocky, toothy grin. “You have to keep up, that’s the point of jogging together.”

“Yes, well—” sneakers squeak and shuffle as she slows further, hands languid like noodles at her side from already jogging over half the bloody ship. “It wasn’t my idea to accompany you, was it?”

Swings his arms, elbows out, as he walks to her ready to have this discussion again for the third time in a day. “We need to do other things together—” she opens her mouth to remind him that the things they do together are miraculous and make them both feel very, very good, but he holds up a hand to stop her. “Something other than sex and movies and lounging on the bed.”

“All of that sounds absolutely fabulous right now.” Slaps his sweat soaked bicep and sashays by him, the roll of her hips purposeful. “I’ll have one of each.”

“Vala.” Grabs her equally sweaty bicep with a light pink flush flowering against her skin from overexertion and spins her back into place for the conversation to continue yet again. “I’m serious about this. Our relationship can’t just be sex and pillow talk.”

“Why not?”

“Is that what you want?”

“Does it matter?” Wants to throw her arms up, but feels as though it’s overdone at this point, that he’ll label her as dramatic when he’s the one who wants to define their relationship, wants to evolve it from the bedsheets to something more and on this ship it’s a very dumb, very dangerous thing to do.

“Of course it does.”

Doesn’t say a word back, because if her opinion mattered, they wouldn’t have gone jogging.

If her opinion mattered, he wouldn’t be sneaking into her bed in the early hours pressing himself hard against her while she’s still asleep. He doesn’t know her past, she can barely separate actions done to her and actions that have been done, but if it wasn’t about the sex, that wouldn’t be a scenario.

“I’m done running.” Turns away from him, not listening as he calls her name, but remains stationary in the middle of the corridor.

If it was about anything more than sex, he would trail her like she did when he started jogging.


	79. Day 79

She wakes up crampy and wanting chocolate fudge brownie ice cream.

She misses breakfast and groggily drags herself down the hallway to the washroom she and Samantha share despite there being more than enough washrooms aboard the Odyssey for them to have their own. Reaching into the cupboard she pulls out a half-empty box of tampons and adds that to the mental list of toiletries she needs to order. Perhaps she could convince her friend to work her magic on the matter converter, or creator, or whatever, and bring her ice cream into existence.

Walking blanketless towards Samantha’s lab gives her a shiver and a headache stirs at her temples, it hurts to open her eyes and if she doesn’t get her ice cream she’ll blow up the bloody ship, time dilation field be damned.

Daniel almost strides right by her, his body fully healthy and retaining his blood supply as far as she knows. He stops and does a double take at the bags underneath her eyes, or her frizzy unbrushed hair, or the way her sweater isn’t completely on. “Hey, you don’t look so great.”

Tea, ice cream, and more tampons, then back to bed.  

“Your compliments are always so beautifully worded, Daniel. Thank you,” murmurs and drags herself further down the hallway.

“Are you getting sick?” Before she can answer he covers her forehead with his hand, “ugh, yeah you’re clammy, but it doesn’t feel like you have a fever.”

Swats his hand down and turns her back to him. “Believe me Daniel, what I have, you cannot catch.”

“So you are sick.” He trails behind her and can’t see her roll her eyes at his idiocy, she could spell it out for him in twenty-three different languages and he would still need more. “You should be back in bed, you don’t want to get everyone sick.”

She whips around, her hands strangling the air as a last effort attempt to not wrap them around his throat. “I have cramps, Daniel. You needn’t worry about my cramps.”

“Oh.” His face is blank for a moment, then his brain connects the words with the sounds and then meanings and he lets out an elongated, “Ohhhh.”

“I’m on my way to see Samantha for ice cream and then you won’t—”

“Sam’s not in her lab.”

Leans against the archway and drills her forehead into her arm. “Why not?”

“Her and Teal’c are doing something in the workout room.” Her eyebrow arcs towards him saying more than she needs to and he sighs, “get your head out of the gutter.”

But his hand is warm on the small of her back as he pushes her further down the hall. “If it’s just ice cream you want, I think I can do that for you.”

 


	80. Day 80

 

“How are you feeling?” Samantha happens by the couch she’s taking a brief relaxation on.

Her friend, the astrophysicist who still hasn’t found a way out of their predicament.

Her friend, so she buries the feelings of recriminations whenever she sees Samantha doing anything but working on a way off the blasted ship, has a cup of coffee nestled between her two hands, and a rueful grin on her face.

She is fully aware she is keeping them here, where the cramps run vengeful.

“Did the pills help at all?”

“Not enough I’m afraid.” Sits up, not wanting to be rude, not wanting to hold a conversation while in repose because apparently to almost every single resident of this ship, it is rude to do so. “Are yours this bad?”

Samantha purses her lips, likely a topic she’s never been asked before unless by Dr. Lam, likely a conversation that’s never even been a blip of an idea to any of their teammates. How often have they been off world during the tensest of mission and suddenly know what was coming?

But her friend takes a seat beside her, coffee mug balancing on her military fatigue clothed knees. “Bad, but no where near as bad as yours.”

“You probably have a higher pain tolerance, Darling.” Sighs, pressing the tips of her fingers into her pelvis like she is trying to work out a sore, very angry, muscle.

“Mmm.” Sam sips her coffee, and a bit drips down her chin. She catches it with her fingers and wipes it on her thigh. “I don’t think so.”

“Have you ever been off-world and just have it happen?”

“Oh yeah, not my favorite thing.”

“Or the missions that last for the whole week.”

“Like they know.”

She arches out her back, clamping her hands into a ball and stretching her arms out before her. It only offers the briefest of reliefs. Without Mitchell seeking her out, or being present or privy to her reoccurring pain, she’s stuck on low-level Tau’ri pain relievers and ice cream. “That time when Muscles and I were hunting for that radioactive something or other, it was all over me, and I could not explain to them why.”

“On Atlantis, they have a medical device that each returning officer has to be scanned with, and it mistook mine for a slow bleeding gunshot wound.” Samantha finishes her coffee with a large sip, but continues to swirl the cup out of habit. “I’ve never seen so many red faces in one room.”


	81. Day 81

The bulkhead is cool against the snarling, curling muscles in her back that inflame every time she shifts her weight, every time she inhales too deeply. Finds a protuberance in the construction, a small mound in the metal and moves against it to work her muscles over.

“You got an itch, Princess?” He stands in the middle of the corridor, just as where she left him. A few feet away from her instead of looming in the mouth of the alcove. His fingers twitch a bit at the white line streaking each side of his workout shorts.

Wants to tell him she has a cramp that feels like something is masticating her from within, that all the drugs and the ice cream Samantha keeps popping out of the matter creator won’t matter because nothing helps. Wants to tell him how sorry she is that she left him the way she did, but that he deserved it for using her just as bad as she uses him and not admitting to it. Wants to tell him that these few days apart have been utter hell for her, even with cramps aside, she’s never been lonelier living in such intimate quarters.

Never been so cold at night.

Never listened to the voices so much.

Leans her body forward, removing the pressure building in her pelvis from sitting on her bum for too long, and rests her forehead against the bulkhead with a shaky breath.

Two cautious steps forward, the same thunk thunk of his runners. His fingers skim over her hair and she feels like she hasn’t had a touch from fingers with no malicious intent for years, it sends her a spark and a shiver, it unclenches her shoulders and her jaw.  “You feeling okay?”

“Very weak. Very much in pain.”

Crouches so she can see his face, so she isn’t staring at his knees, one with a healing bruise from their last excursion in the showers. His eyebrows slide delicate, understanding, but then reconstruct, masking his concern. “I just got Sam to beam me in some great movies about basketball. You up for a marathon?”

Her hand is very white, and floats as a phantom to the crease that forms in his eyebrows at her jerky movement. She brushes a thumb over one of his brows and watches it harden back into concern before he leans forward and kisses her, dry lips on dry lips and they almost stick together. The smell of his jogging, his sweaty body in motion overwhelms her and she falls into him because laying ensconced between his arm and his side while he fumbles with the remote and rubs the material of her pants absently with his free hand sounds like a description of heaven.

Allows him to help her stand. To rewrap her blanket around her shoulders and toddle with her to her room a few twists away.

They were both wrong.

It’s not about the sex. 


	82. Day 82

Daniel knocks on her door with a carton of double fudge brownie ice cream and a bottle of pain relievers in his hands. His face is flushed a bit, almost making his glasses foggy. “Sam asked me to bring these to you.”

“Thank you.” Snatches the ice cream removing a spoon from one of the many cartons discarded around her room in the last twenty-four hours.

“Okay, it is not healthy to be eating this much ice cream.”

Doesn’t answer him, just sits on the edge of her unmade bed in the room without any lights, just that from the energy of the beam outside her window and takes her second big scoop.

“Does it really make you feel better?”

“Nothing makes it feel better.”


	83. Day 83

“That make you feel better, baby?” He’s full inside her, driving up into her as she sits in his lap. He’s got a good angle going and sometimes when she gasps, she can barely feel the cramping anymore.


	84. Day 84

They sit, all dressed up, and her formal slacks are starting to cut into her bloated stomach, so she leans back in her chair, but it squeaks and they all slow their eating to observe her, fidgeting, wondering if they’ve worked out her rocking movement yet.

“Maybe things we miss from Earth isn’t such a great topic for tonight.”

“It’s a bit of a difficult subject, Sir.” Samantha clears her throat and dabs at the corner of her mouth with a napkin.

She hasn’t touched her pasta.

They said this was pasta.

She wasn’t paying attention.

“Why’s that?” The General finishes, laying his knife and fork across his empty and stained plate.

“It’s easy to forget the details of day to day living when you’re not living that way anymore.” Daniel pushes his empty plate away, exhaling, a bit perturbed.

She’s on dish duty tonight and wants to start collecting them now, wreck her blue shirt with dirty dishwater and chemicals, and then live with five more hours of cramps before falling into an exhausted sleep.

Samantha clears her throat again, “It’s actually a side effect of living in space for so long.”

“Great.” Cameron’s voice is unenthusiastic and his sarcasm strong as he shovels in another forkful of the pasta.

This was pasta.

“Tau’ri are still relatively new to space travel.” Muscles’s plate is cleared clean enough that she could shove it back into the cupboard without the scouring process. “In a few generations your offspring will develop an adaptation for space travel which will filter out unnecessary side effects.”

“Great.” Cameron’s voice remains the same.

“Vala, what do you think?”

She has to blink.

Twice.

Because Daniel is hardly one to ever ask her for answers, or opinions, let alone in front of an audience.

“Pardon?”

“You’ve probably been in space more than any of us, does it affect you at all?”

“Well I eat less, I hurt more, but I’m not the best one to ask. While I can remember the code to an alarm or a safe for years, I forgot my mother’s own voice moments after she died.”

And they’re all staring at her again.

Cameron’s fingers catch her own between the seats and she does her best to not look at him, but she knows the pitied expression he’s wearing with his big blue eyes.

“Well.” Landry stands and half of them follow suit because there is no routine quite like military routine. “Who’s ready for dessert?”


	85. Day 85

“You know what I really miss?”

She and Samantha lay on their backs against the pristine tiled floor of her lab. They’ve had just a tad too much to drink, well, Samantha has with her inadequate Tau’ri alcohol intolerance, and she insisted they lay down to keep the lab from spinning.

Her level of intoxication is just above giggly, which is perfect because they picked up on yesterday’s aborted dinner topic about what they miss from Earth and without the alcohol buffer, it would be quite a sad conversation.

“What I really miss is the ground.” Samantha answers herself before she gets a chance. Drunk Samantha is chatty, very chatty, very fast, her speech equated with how quickly sober Samantha writes out complex equations.

“The ground?” Laughs because laughing feels so good right now. Her hands mounded on her stomach, bouncing with each giggle.

“Laying on the ground, on the grass staring up at the clouds trying to find things.” When she turns her head to Samantha, she finds her friend’s eyes narrowed with a fast approaching sleep. “I haven’t done it since I was kid, but I would do it right now if I could.”


	86. Day 86

“You’re not doing it right.” Tells him almost immediately because she knows the feel and the feel isn’t right.

His laugh is a hot exhale on the back of her neck. “How do you even know, Princess? I haven’t even started yet.”

“Because you’re holding them wrong.” Doesn’t bother to glance back at him with a scornful expression. Why she let him try this she’ll never know. Why he’s so keen on trying it, she’s not sure she wants to know.

“Them?” He sounds more lost than ever.

“The sections of hair, you idiot.” Now she’s giggling because she observes his confused expression in a mirror hanging on her wall. He shoves her forward, a strong hand in the middle of her back. “Hey.” She swats back at him, hitting him playfully in his chest. “This doesn’t call for roughhousing, Colonel Mitchell.”

“With you, yeah it does.” Shoves her again and she almost topples off the end of the bed before he drags her back with a quick hand around her stomach.

Swats away his hands, and the second wave of his hands attempting to handle her. “Do you want to learn how to braid or not?”

“I’m trying but you’re making it difficult.”

Ignores the blame because the last time they tried this, he blamed her she fell into the trap like unsuspecting prey and he ended up on top of her in mere seconds. Instead she allows her still damp hair to fall into three separate parts and slides each bundle between different fingers. “Look.”

His fingers ghost over hers as she braids, until she’s done two rounds, then his dept fingers retrieve the three separate sections and he continues to weave her hair, tying off the tail when finished.

“I think I’m getting it.”

“No, not really.”  He tugs her braid, reminding her of those country boys when she was ten or eleven and how they tripped her and pulled her hair. “You are better than you were. That’s all we can really hope for.”

“Dreaming big there, Daisy.”


	87. Day 87

A stone falls from the sack and clatters against the metallic floor.

“Muscles,” she calls after him, sloping her shoulders to grab the smooth gray rock from the ground.

The memories, the voices flood.

The cool river rocks she washed her feet in, the same ones behind the house that she used to retrieve to place against her mother’s temples and wrists when her fever became too bad. The same ones she mounded as a grave for her mother. The same ones the villagers flung at her while being marched through the street to be burned alive, or when she was set on display in the Ver Isca village center for three days, or as she was dragged kicking and screaming to the jail to be beaten as Qetesh, the same as the stones placed into the machine that transferred her into Salis, and then again into Daniel. The ones she piled into her maiden’s dress after a forced marriage and began walking for the deepest part of the river.

“Thank you, Vala Mal Doran.” He plucks the rock from her palm like it’s a berry.

“What are all these for?”

“I’m unsure but General Landry asked Colonel Carter to fabricate them, so I assume they are for some gardening measure.”


	88. Day 88

It happens at dinner.

Muscles, of all people, tells a dirty joke and the laughter trickles in as they all become aware of the vastly inappropriate and sexual punchline.

“Teal’c,” Samantha chastises, but he only pulls a tight grin and gives her a small shrug before breaking out into a booming laughter again.

It’s another few seconds before they hear General Landry’s gasps for breath, his inhalations hitching in his throat.

“Are you okay, Sir?” Samantha stretches her arm out to touch one of his hands, palm flat against the table, as he slaps his hand against the table still trying to breathe.

They all spring up after that. Samantha and Cameron barking orders, Muscles slinging the older man over his back and racing towards the medical bay, Daniel running ahead to the lab to get personal files for weight and height to distribute drugs more efficiently and she stands in the evacuated dining area with a hollow chest.

Hours pass and she drifts from waiting outside the medical bay, not wanting to go in and have them send her back out, back to the dining room table. She clears the dishes, waiting for someone to come get her and inform her as to what’s happened.

When no one does she wipes the table clean, then washes the dishes, packs away the extras, scours the pots and pans, then washes them, runs a cloth over the kitchen counters and sweeps the two rooms.

No one comes to get her.

She breaks into the General’s room because she cannot stand still, and she cannot be with the others. She waters his plants, his vast amount of plants. There’s one he’s in the middle of transferring over, so she finishes it, cleans up the extra soil, and then breaks out of his room using the same air vent.

Cameron finds her in the kitchen, her head face down against the table, her arms shielding instead of cushioning. His hand pats her head, brushes through hair and she darts her eyes up to find his willowy with tears.

“He’s got a machine helping him breathe.” Clears his throat as the tears catch, he blinks and pulls his eyes away from her until she reaches across the table and takes his free hand. “Sam dosed him to sleep through the night, her and Teal’c are going to stay watch overnight. He’ll be stuck in bed and probably grumpy as hell, but he should be alright.”


	89. Day 89

No one sleeps during the night, they all might a well be holding vigil over the bed.

But morning comes, despite the clock in the dining room saying it hasn’t, and his hand still strokes her hair. This is how it’s been all night, very few words, but constant contact because it’s how they survive now.

Daniel pops in and luckily announces himself in time for Cameron’s hand to recoil from caressing her cheek. They throw together a makeshift breakfast and Daniel agrees to take some to the medical bay for Sam and Teal’c if they clean the kitchen.

They do.

In silence.

The clanging of pots and dishes ringing in her head along with voices, her mother’s muted words as she died, the slack feel of her hand in her own.

She starts crying while wiping down the counter behind him, and he turns, arms around her, absorbing her.

They end up in the shower. The door securely locked and steam calming her frantically rowing chest. He undresses her one piece of clothing at a time. Allows the warm water to course over her first before ducking under the spray.

He grunts when she begins stroking him, unsure if he needs the release as she does, or if his exhausted emotions are beginning to take a physical toll. But his hips pump with her, and both his hands frame her face as he sucks water droplets off her neck, pushing her back into the shower tree and in the recess behind the stream.

Hands drop and hike up her thighs. She arcs her back against the cold metal as he enters her and when he bucks the metal scratches her skin. Her hips shimmy finding the right angle, and then roll finding his tempo. The heel of her feet rest a in the muscled grooves of his lower back and hot water reddens his body, cascading off and onto her cooling skin.

She bashes a balled fist into his hard shoulder, his lips catching hers to keep her quiet as she ripples around him, igniting a deep exhale at his skin, then his fingers loosen their grip, her body sliding down.

“Cameron?”

“I didn’t bring a condom.”

It’s happened before, quite often and if they were back on the base he would pull out and she would help him finish another way.

But this is different.

Grips the back of his neck, clamps her legs tighter and angles differently, rolling her hips again.

“Vala—”

“I know.”


	90. Day 90

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy three month anniversary!

They’re sitting at the kitchen table as a team, but no one is uttering a word.

It was Daniel’s turn to cook breakfast, but with everyone taking shifts keeping General Landry company, he forgot until only moments before they all piled into the kitchen. When it became obvious, they weren’t fans of the sloppy porridge he managed to whip up in a few minutes, he threw a small tantrum speaking of how nothing mattered, how time was a construct, how death was inevitable, all indications given to the fact that he finally had his break.

As he marched away from the table, Cameron nudged her knee with his own, she looked down, then looked up into his tired eyes. “You should go calm him down.”

“I don’t think you quite understand the effect I have on Daniel.” She tossed her spoon back in the bowl and wished she was still cramping so she had an excuse to eat ice cream for breakfast.

“I think you need to give yourself more credit.” His hand briefly blanketed her thigh before he pulled away remembering the breakfast crowd.

“You are the one who deals with him most of the time.” Samantha’s smile held reassurance, but also perhaps she just didn’t want to deal with the ornery archaeologist.

“And what exactly am I supposed to say to him?” Threw her hands in the air because aside from Cameron, she’s the most nihilistic person on the vessel, but she hides it better under glassy false grins.

“You’ll know what he needs.” Cameron pushed her from the seat.

It was so simple and innocent.

She knew he needed to blow off steam and since she was his favorite target, she gave him a reason too, came on too strong for him, what she knew was too strong through watching him naturally flinch away from her contact.

But when he blew, he blew too big, his words were heavy and callous fists that thrashed her body, his declarations singed in her ears and finally when he was done his pacing and his rallying and was sure she understood how unattractive he found her, she cried, because this wasn’t the first time someone she cared about spat words at her like this, and despite only living with four other people, it probably wouldn’t be the last.

Slowly crawled back into her sweater and adjusted away from him on the bed, because she didn’t need his continued mockery of her. But his irritation dropped, and his face cleared of dipped lips and angled brows. He asked her to face him and when she did she knew she was in trouble. His hand on the side of her face, soft and gentle and not Daniel from a few moments ago, and he kissed her and she didn’t know what to do. His tongue slid inside her mouth and he dragged her down to the bed with him and she didn’t know what to do. He shucked her of her camisole and shoved a hand down the front of her pants and she didn’t know what to do. He climbed on top of her, came inside of her and she didn’t know what to do.

Maybe this is what he needed.

As she exits his room, fixing her sweater and waving back with a coquettish unease, Cameron rounds the corner. He stops, and she fluffs her hair nervously knowing that he knows her afterglow, knows what she looks like, knows the scent.

He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t shake his head, just continues running.


	91. Day 91

“Cameron, can we please talk about this?” she reclines against the wheels of a Tau’ri fighter jet, she thinks it’s a fighter jet, she’s unsure of the actual capabilities of it, but knows that it’s buoyant in space.

He’s been in the craft for over ten hours now, spent last night in the cockpit with her crumpled by the wheel and part of her was terrified that he might actually turn on the ship and blast through the doors.

“Nothing to talk about, Vala.” His boots thunk heavily on the metal ladder rungs. She hasn’t gotten up because there’s no reason, he’s going to run from her, and he has every right to. “I’m happy you finally got what you wanted.”

Rolls her eyes because men, honestly men, she’s never had a problem with Samantha in the short quarters of the ship, or sharing the bathroom, or cleaning duties or anything at all.

“It’s not what I wanted.” She stands and almost bashes her head off the wing, catching herself moments before. “It’s not what I’ve wanted for a long time.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“It happened so quickly—”

“I’m sure it did.”

“One moment he was screaming how much he hated me, and the next—”

“Did you consent?”

She never told him no, never tried to fight him off, but her mind wasn’t on the situation, her mind was floating somewhere between countless Jaffa guards Qetesh pleased herself with and the way her fiancé stroked her hair, briefly flitted to Daniel’s tongue lapping at the side of her neck and back to the way she sometimes wakes with Cameron’s arm wrapped around her head.

“I was just trying to give him what I thought he needed.”

“Well, I’m sure you did.”


	92. Day 92

The kitchen door screeches when Samantha bumps into it with her shoulder, carrying in a bushel of fresh fruits and vegetables. It’s her turn to cook supper, and she forgot what she requested as ingredients.

Forgot what she intended to cook, her mind too preoccupied with the last few days, with the smile Daniel gives her whenever they cross paths, the small cheeky grin, with his hand always brushing against hers, with the way Cameron refuses to meet her eyes, the way he exits rooms when she walks in, the way he bursts by her in the hallway on his jogs and keeps recalibrating his routes whenever she happen to intercept them.

“Here’s the grocery order.” Samantha sets the basket, an old hamper pulled out of one of the other dorms on the lower level, onto the counter beside her. There are three packs of meat, a bag of potatoes, celery, carrots, and a few other root vegetables along with some stock.

“Oh, I was going to cook stew.” More of an internal thought really, but she speaks it aloud, over the voices for clarification.

Samantha grins tersely at her, and they unpack the groceries in silence, only the sound of vegetables thunking against the metal counters between them.


	93. Day 93

Someone thumping a fist on her metal door awakens her from a rare deep sleep. She turns her head away from smothering against the pillow and mumbles something. In her dream she was in a beautiful field full of wheat back on her home world before Qetesh ravaged the soil, the flora, the people.

Golden and shimmering and calm.

The knock is heavier, pounding into the metal and she lifts her head again.

“Just come in already.”

The door hisses open and Daniel waddles in, his attention placed on a tray before him stacked with two plates of pancakes and two mugs of coffee. “You missed breakfast again.”

She watches the brown liquid overflow from the mugs and wash around the tray, soaking into the napkins.

The door hisses closed behind him.

“I haven’t seen you in a few days, I was starting to worry.”

Sitting up in bed, one of her camisole straps topples off her shoulder, and she blinks at him through bleary eyes. “Sorry, I’ve just not been feeling myself lately.”

“Cramps?” He asks point blank, but in an illicit whisper like he’s giving her the code to his credit card which she already knows.

“What? Oh no, just—”

Not right about what happened.

Not happy with what happened.

The explanation is going to set him off and then half of the populace of the ship won’t be talking to her unless she starts talking to herself again.

“I know, it’s a little weird.” He sets the tray between them and reaches over adjusting her strap back up her shoulder. His hands run over her bed smooshed hair and he grins at her. “God, you’re gorgeous.”

And she can’t bring herself to tell him because, for once, he’s happy.


	94. Day 94

“I don’t know how you can get anything done when your room looks like this.” Takes her request from yesterday a little too seriously as he enters her room now without a knock or verbal permission. Appears like an apparition at the end of her bed, where she’s rested her head, reclined on her back using a pile of magazines as a pillow.

He refers to the opposite end of her bed, where clothes, both dirty and clean, congregate over her pillows. Always requests more because old injuries can flare up at anytime and it’s nice to have a pillow to prop up her leg or under her back.

Even with the matter creator, she still hasn’t received them.

The bedside table has stacked dishes from almost a week ago, various glasses in various different sizes with various stainable liquid in them. Thought about asking Samantha to conjure her up another case of beer, but that might be pushing it.

“No one said you have to come here.”

The room is messy for one reason only, because the person who usually cleans it is in a snit and not talking to her despite her frequent apologies, her hopeful smiles whenever she’s lucky enough to catch him rounding a corner, or in the doorway of a room on the way out as she enters.

Her apologies are starting to mean nothing to her as well.

“I want to.” Doesn’t take the hint and sits down on the small edging of bed she’s left. He wiggles the heels of his shoes until they come off.

She flips, her back facing him, and her hands gathered at her chin. Tries to transport herself to a time when this is what she wanted. When she walked through the gate and slapped down the bracelet onto Daniel’s wrist, partly as an insurance policy, no Lucien Alliance member could kill her if she was linked to him, and partly to give her a reason to get frisky.

When the effects of the bracelets were fading, he came to her in her room and she perked up, her mind wandering to his hands caressing her, his lips sucking on the side of her neck, and his voice gentle, comforting in her ear. Instead he stood in the doorway, observing her with the same expression she uses when she needs to slip by guard dogs, ones who may attack at any moment. The same expression Cameron gives her now. He told her one sentence that hurt just as much as any bullet, as any broken bone.

You can leave now.

The bed shifts beside her and she blinks away tears before he witnesses them. “You don’t have to stay.”

His arm snakes around her hips, his body settling into place behind her, the magazines squeaking with traction. “I want to.”


	95. Day 95

“Do you ever feel as if your actions are not your own?” Receives a deeply washed plate from the sink with toweled hands.

Muscles slings an eyebrow at her, eyes sidelining, but his hands rotate under the water like little ducky legs. “I have been a host.”

“Well so have I, Darling, so have we all.” Swaddles the second dish he hands to her, rubbing the outer rim before swirling her hands inward.

“Then what is the purpose of this conversation?”

“I meant on this ship.” Tosses her towel to the counter, leaning forward, slightly into his arm. “Have you ever done anything while being stuck here that wasn’t entirely your own actions?”

“No.”

“Not even—”

“No.”


	96. Day 96

The _Odyssey_ confines worse than any jail cell she’s ever been in. Makes unusual spaces familiar but not welcoming, alchemizes oxygen particles every two hours.

Outside the pressure of space stalks in on the ship, bleeds through the bulkhead and into the food they eat, into the fake air they breathe, into the fibers weaving through their bodies flaring old injuries.

Inside, her self is tense. Muscles strained and pulled until torn, organs sit like boulders and make her body heavy to lung around, fatigue her quickly from a trek to the kitchen from her room.

Her decisions are palpable, kept in her trouser pockets like riverbed rocks adding to the weight like a layer of fallible armor.

There are no right decisions.


	97. Day 97

They’re in that damn book room again because he’s always in that room, just as Samantha is always in her lab, Landry is lost amongst his plants, and Teal’c keeps practicing for a battle that will never occur. Cameron was the odd one, the one always on the move, never settling even between her arms or against her chest.

Daniel drapes a hand over her hip, sipping on the coffee that she’s brought him because she’s doing her rounds of ensuring no one is lost up in their own head, that no one’s tears be hidden in fear of recriminations or weakness.

Is sure he’s happier to have the doting girlfriend.

Doting lover more likely.

Even when she was married, she wasn’t good in relationships.

“Do you mind if I just finish the topic?” Takes another slurp and his fingers already depress the proper buttons to recall his place.

“Of course.” Doesn’t really care but doesn’t know why she has to be here now, when she could be curled in her alcove on her lonesome. Perhaps he wanted to show her the room in more detail since she’s never been allowed in more than a few seconds.

Engages the technology and the holograms of text bloom before them in the same backlit blue of Cameron’s television. The color unsettles her, the blocks of text as large as limestones she had slaves arrange for her to create a temple as Qetesh. Slaves she used for years, who she depended on years later, who died mining naquadah for her, but the Lucien Alliance was after her because of her lost shipment, her failed trade.

It was the scariest time of her life after being corrupted by Qetesh, on the run because the SGC and Daniel needed their precious little Tau’ri ship back. The Lucien Alliance only managed to capture her once while she was doing some basic bartering on an outer rim planet, dragged her into an alleyway, and before she could comment with her usual wit and charm, started to beat her. Rebroke ribs and one of her wrists before she snatched up a weapon, doesn’t remember if it was a gun or a zat, and shot the men.

They were getting stronger, they were pushing her down and she knew enough from Qetesh on what to expect.

“Hey are you okay?” His hand masks the back of her neck in the layer of sweat delineating the fine hair.

She’s breathing heavily because she can still smell the trash in that alley, feel the muscles in her back crash into brick walls, see the intent in the mens’ eyes. “Yes, I’m—” fans the collar of her shirt with a prerequisite grin and disengages from his side “—I’m just a bit hot is all.”

“Vala, you’re shaking.” Anchors her arm in place when she moves to exit the room, the large tomes still splayed out, rocky and jagged like alleyway bricks.

Suffocating like hands depressed over her mouth.

“It just feels very tight in here.”

“Tight?”

“Like there’s no room.” His fingers ring around the wrist they broke, and the sensation is still so fresh in her mind, the pain, the shock, the numbness in flight or fight. In flee or—

“Are you—” Pauses and releases her wrist, she blinks twice in relief, and he pushes the glasses back up on his face. “Are you having a panic attack?”

“I’ll meet you later, Darling.” Pecks a kiss into his cold, smooth cheek, careful to spring away before he can ensnare her again.

“Wait, just let me shut this down and I’ll come with you.”

“No, no, you stay and do your reading.” Stops at the door with her back to the rest of the room her stomach and heart already settling, the voices of the men whispering hateful threats to her relaxing back into the rest of the tidal speech. She blows him a kiss, because it seems normal. “Come find me when you’re finished.”

 

 


	98. Day 98

The beam is brighter today, not closer and certainly not further away, but she can almost feel the heat radiating through the vessel and cooking her skin. He shuffles to her staring out the window, knows he’s moving slowly so he doesn’t startle her, but she’s well aware of him.

Of the things he is and isn’t.

He isn’t stealthy.

But his cold hands, came from the book room where the climate control doesn’t function as well, cup the tops of her shoulders through her shirt and he pecks a kiss to her cheek. The action is domestic and routine for something so relatively new, but it makes her lips flinch into a smile.

Wraps his arms around her waist, almost circling her hips and she turns her attention back towards the beam, the light outline burned into her blinks. “What are you thinking?”

Sighs, her cold fingers mingling with his, his breath hot on the side of her neck.

A glimpse of honesty.

“That this must be what it feels like to be shipwrecked.”


	99. Day 99

“What do Tau’ri believe happens to them after death.”

She sits in the large armchair in the family room, which is what Daniel calls the shared living space with the television, which now also has a few more personal pictures, some novels, and of course two of Landry’s plants.

He glances up at her, eyes assessing from over the rims as he runs a cheesecloth over the table to clear it of dust. They all have these menial duties, tasks on the upkeep of the vessel, little routines to keep them from going mad.

At first she rebelled, but now she understands completely.

Looks forward to the days when she cooks, when she does the washing up, when it’s her laundry day, which she always forgets.

“Well, I think different people believe different things.” He lifts the remote, and stacks the coasters on the ground beside him, streaking a clear line through the gathered dust. “Religion has a lot to do with it. Some people believe in heaven, some believe in nirvana, some believe in nothing.”

“Which do you believe?”

His actions stutter again, he wipes the dusty clothe over the cleaned top leaving a different kind of streak. “Well I think that depends on the day.”

“What do you believe now?”

“Why the sudden interest?” His tone isn’t accusatory or upset, just curious as he restacks the coasters on the table, using the sleeve of his shirt to wipe the lingering dust away.

“No reason.” Breaks eye contact with him which is a dead give away, so she catches him again, shrugging her shoulders. “Ennui probably.”

“What happened to you?” His back to her, his arms stretch and wipe the ledges and tops of the television. “I mean, you’ve actually died.”

“So have you.”

Shakes the cloth out spreading all the dust particles back into the air, then coughs into his elbow as he inhales the cloud. “What’d you see, Vala?”

“Nothing.”

She saw nothing.


	100. Day 100

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the end of this chapter the story is officially half over.

She hasn’t sensed him in days, not even the reverberation of the thunk thunk thunk of running shoes he toed off beside the bed and white cotton socks that clung to his toes with perspiration. The same perspiration that clung to his hairline, moistening her fingers while she raked her hands through his hair as he bent his head and buried it between her breasts.

Her own thoughts aren’t coherent enough that she can translate how she feels, the emotions coursing inside of her as Daniel leans over and shows her a picture from a book of Ancient Egyptology and how the Goa’uld influenced the Tau’ri culture.

Of burial rites and rituals and funeral pyres overly extravagant to hide the emptiness within.

The nothingness in the afterlife.

The lack of life.

“These are canopic jars.” Jabs a finger at a coarse black and white picture depicting tiny vessels, and she gathers herself against his shoulder, suddenly exhausted with all of it, with the idea of continuing the day, with allowing inappropriate contact to be ordinary, with neither justifying nor denying her growing attachment to two men in an already limited environment.

Daniel continues his prattling explanation and she continues to absorb comfort from his voice, from his closeness while simultaneously longing for the stench of stinky sneakers.


	101. Day 101

He’s on some monologue about the Asgardians that has split and become about gate travel, about the most interesting planets he’s been privileged to visit. About meeting his wife and falling in love and having that love be torn away. How he doesn’t think it’s possible for him to love on that level again, and then backtracks, creating a new path in his linguistic snow to placate her and let her know that he doesn’t mean with her, after all, they are in his bed, awkwardly cuddling as if they were teenagers again.

The love of her life, her first fiancé, who’s name she cannot even remember because she murdered him. Felt the heavy stickiness of his blood dry under her fingernails as she tossed away his scalp, and her stomach so flush and soft and gentle and then not. Then empty and bloodied, and the pain, the turmoil she felt rolling around trapped as a prisoner in her own head while her hands, her body committed atrocities, was unequivocal. Being on this ship is tedious, stitching the lies and the relations is dangerous, old broken bones and scars pulsate with pain sometimes, but it was never worse than being a partial observer to her own life.

“What about you?” Nudges his head against hers on his shoulder, her eyes becoming very heavy and burn when she opens them. “You’ve been to more planets than I have, different galaxies, I’m sure you have tons of great stories.”

“None for tonight, Darling.”

“Oh come on.” Bounces his shoulder, waking her again. “What was the best planet you ever visited?”

“Earth.” It sort of shudders him to a stop, and it’s possible that he understood the implication behind her answer.

Earth was where the least amount of bad things happened to her.  


	102. Day 102

Jolts awake to the sound of an alarm blaring in her room, not the amplification of her clock in a half-dream state, as the lights in the hallway have dropped and blink in time with the klaxon. She smells it before she sees it, the familiar scent of a burning ship, has experienced enough cargo wrecks to know.

Jogs down the hallway following the trail of smoke lapping and growing against the ceiling in the tight space and in a grand paradox finds herself jogging into him, a straight on collision leaving her a dazed heap on the ground for more than a quick second.

“You okay?” His voice is husky and a barely audible over the shout of the alarm.

Hoists her up, setting her on her bare feet, her knee just barely skinned in the exchange. Evaluates him a moment, the lights fainting in and out to almost a solid screech, a sound that doesn’t fade, a clamor rivaling the voices in her head.

Cannot pinpoint the reason why he speaks to her now, almost two weeks after her misjudgement. But doesn’t let herself get caught in the hardly there smirk perking the corners of his lips, or his wide trusting eyes. Instead continues on as usual, because it takes a harder, stronger persona to do so. “I think the fire is in the lab.”

“Yeah, it is, I just came from there.” He might breathe out something akin to relief, but her ears are deaf to most things, distracted by the wail of a burning ship.

“What are you doing this way?”

“What?”

“If you’ve just come from the lab, why are you in this corridor.” More importantly why is he in her corridor when seven hours earlier he was doing everything he could to evade her. The avoidance blistered into shame within her, suggesting she skip meals lest he sit across from her with a cross expression and slurp his stew in loud sibilants.

“Doesn’t matter.” Juts a thumb back to the lab, his other hand waving out the smoke between them as they both act like the strong stench doesn’t tickle their nostrils. “Sam made it out okay, but she’s going to have to decompress this level. Go meet her in command.”

The courtesy of civil, professionalism cuts harder than the black fumes on her lungs.

 


	103. Day 103

Landry ends up back on the oxygen and suppressed to bed rest for a day or two more than he’d like. Complains from under thin white medical blankets, then demands a list of things brought to him including five of his plants, a television, and specific foods. He and Samantha barter until he’s allowed to remain mobile but confined to his conservatory of a bedroom.

Teal’c also requires medical attention as he not only rescued the female wing of the ship by putting out the fire, but also all the formulas and mathematics Samantha had complied up to last night. His skin was a forfeit for his actions though and he received many second-degree burns over his hands. He tensed, with teeth digging into lip, as she and Samantha flushed the wounds with saltwater. Cussed many phrases in Goa’uld and some in an unknown language. Refused narcotics until Samantha gave him a strict debate ending in her voice raising to a high enough octave that scared even her.

Muscles relinquished his arm for pain medication to be administered.

She travels back into the med bay where Muscles lays now, the top of his cot angled up allowing him to look pensive and meditative instead of sickly or injured. He doesn’t acknowledge her presence, so she flops into a foldy chair beside him.

After more time passes with only strained silence between them, she holds open her hand to reveal the Goa’uld healing device that has saved her life on numerous instances but siphons her energy almost completely.

“No.” His eyes don’t stray from where they witness a new perspective of the beam outside, from the left and sort of beneath.

“You’re going to need the use of your hands, Muscles.” Angles her chair away from his cot, staring from the same direction as him, trying to see what he sees because then maybe she’ll get a snapshot of his thoughts, an understanding for his need to sacrifice. Compare it to her own. “We’ll need you to take out the garbage, and to spar with Mitchell to keep him on his feet, to play chess with Landry so he can exit his rainforest of a room.”

But Muscle’s face doesn’t break, not the crack of a smirk she can usually detect on Cameron, or Daniel’s tight grin that he fights to hide.

“What if there’s another lab fire?”

“No not say such words.”

“What if this time Samantha—”

His fist, his white scarred, open skinned fist slams down on the side table jittering the light, tipping a glass of water and sending a book, open-faced, to the floor.

But she’s not dissuaded by the violence, barely flinches because she expects it.

Men.

Some men.

Allow their fears, their rage to build up within them until they’re released in hostile actions and doused with apologies and butterfly kisses.

Cups her hand around his wrist, careful to not touch any of the bandages stuck into his raw skin. He meets her eyes now, already remorseful for the action. “You sacrificed a lot for us yesterday. Allow me to sacrifice a little for you today.”


	104. Day 104

Very hot.

Very tired.

Rolls over in her bed, the sheets sticking between the perspiration on her thighs. All her pillows no longer have a cool side, and she rides the coattails of a headache caused by a mixture of exhaustion, heat, and perhaps dehydration.

"Hey." Opens her eyes and he's suddenly there, sitting on the floor beside the bed, his one knee bent up, an arm slung around it. His hand traces the side of her face, delicately over her eyes, and pulls her hair away from pasting to the back of her neck. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I'd rather be dead."

"Don't say that." His eyebrows fall stern behind the rim of his glasses, and he strokes the skin on the underside of her arm. "I brought you some more pain relievers and a box fan to help you cool off. Can you sit up?"

"Yes." Pushes, but slips under the weight of herself. He catches her under the arm, helping her into a sitting position. Different sets of hands doing the same thing, different sets of hands leaving prints all over her body with calloused and uncalloused tips, with tickles and pinches and grasps.

Two very different men.

Hands her two red pills that she gulps down with water fresh from the fridge, perspiring in her hand, the bottle slipping as she chugs. Wants to drink it all in case it is the slim chance that it is the dehydration making her feel awful.

"Vala?" Doesn't answer but tries to give him a nod. "What did it feel like when you healed Teal'c?"

The bottle crinkles when she removes it from her mouth, empty and slick, and hands it back to him with a small gasp of air. "It felt like I was giving up a little bit of my life for his."

"Does it feel like that every time?"

"Worse usually. Muscles's injuries weren't too extenuating." He takes hold of her hand, hot and wet and her fingers twitch a little involuntary. "It was easier when I was Qetesh, but each year that passes it gets a little harder for me to concentrate. More for me to sacrifice for a smaller injury healed."

When she smiles at him, rueful in her many decisions of healing herself of small injuries, scrapes and cuts, knowing she would eventually build up an immunity, her energy healing him after she purposefully shot him in the arm, he captures her lips, soft in pressure and meaningful in touch.

"Something wrong, Darling." Curls her voice against his ear, his cheek feverish against hers, his hands already ridding her of unnecessary bits of clothing.

"I just want you right now." Crashes down on her, spreading her back across the bed, every time is exploratory, rushed, slowed, stumbling, stuttering. Like learning a new dance, and then having to relearn the moves. "I just want you, Vala."


	105. Day 105

The _Odyssey_ heats to such a high degree that one of the crates full of popcorn kernels down in storage starts exploding with perfect white puffs skittering across the metallic floors like insects. He regales her of the tale as they munch on a red bowl full of the snack, situated between them on the bed.

They’re so different.

Not her and him, although the same is true, but him and Cameron.

Once Cameron began to accept her, he liked to snuggle, liked her hands on him, in his hair, dragging across his arms, her legs entwined with his, her head on his chest, his fingers in her hair. They were magnetic, touched and couldn’t disengage, if one shifted in bed, the other compensated.

But Daniel likes his space, likes the ability to makes the rules on which touching is appropriate and at which times and she knows his relationships have ended drastically quicker than Cameron’s, perhaps leading to him feeling more guarded in showing affection, or perhaps showing affection to just her as she has come at him with verbal quibbles for the last three years.

Now he leans over once an hour or so to show her pictures in his research book, explain to her the concepts and meanings behind the symbols the Ancients left on Earth, entertains her with tales the Tau’ri made up to explain them away and sometimes his fingers graze over hers in the popcorn bowl. Sometimes over the intense crunching, he meets her eyes and grins like a child, naïve and happy with his snack and book.

She feels an odd sense of relaxation with him, that she doesn’t have to look her best, or preen herself in a certain manner to have him notice her or care for her. Maybe it’s because they’ve been friends for so long that he’s seen her slam away in the middle of the night wearing a sleeping mask and jammies.

If she was laying beside Cameron, dressed as she is, in workout shorts that are too inappropriate for workplace anything, and a tank top she’s yanked to just under her breasts he would be preoccupied with her body, how the clothing clung to it, the material texture versus her skin and she wouldn’t get three handfuls of popcorn before he started playfully exploring her.

That wasn’t a problem.

Neither of those scenarios are a problem.

The problem is her, and how accepts two completely different men, two teammates, with the same intentions.

 


	106. Day 106

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick heads up that this story will be put on hiatus after this chapter, therefore updates will not be occurring daily any longer.

She brings Daniel a coffee during mid-afternoon.

She does this sometimes when the voices, the horrible memories, become so debilitating, that she’ll drift around and take care of those who need it. Bring Samantha some vegetables and hummus so she eats something between breakfast and dinner, give Muscles a book she found and thought of him, compliments the General on his new growing sprouts.

She can never find Cam and she hopes someone is taking care of him.

“Hey,” Daniel greets her intrusion into the book room so warmly now when before she crossed the threshold he would go off like an alarm. He takes the mug from her and presses his lips into her temple while a hand snakes around her waist. “I’m almost two percent through the database.”

“Making strides.” Her head falls to his shoulder as the language whirls around her.

He nudges her with his hip, “You okay?”

“Just feeling—” her hands motor through the air trying to pluck the right word out “—blah”

“Oh, cramps?” his whispers despite it just being the two of them.

And she laughs despite herself. Smacks him on the shoulder. “It’s not that every single time, you idiot.”

Her hand flies to her mouth to stifle the laughter percolating in her stomach and he drags it away. “God, I’ve missed that.”

“What?”

“Your laughter.” A full grin on his face as he kisses her, his lips a bit chapped but very gentle, still unsure of himself.

She deepens the kiss, her tongue sliding into his mouth with a groan as her body moves in motions against his. His fingers tickle across her stomach, flutter up her side, ridding her of her sweater and camisole leaving her in a bra.

“Daniel.” He jitters her hands off him while shaking out of his jacket, pulling off his black t-shirt.

“Mmm.” He captures her lips again, the kiss more ravaging, hungrier, without pulling his lips back he moans, “yes?”

Dips his head to her neck, licking, sucking, and her skin grows warm against his.

“We shouldn’t do this here.”

“You’re right,” agrees as he unclasps her bra, letting the material drop and holding her bare chest to his.

Her concentration focuses on his hands, his lips, not the loss of their pants, or the way he lowers them to the ground, as he probably couldn’t support her in the same way Cameron could. The sex is different than before, more thought in the way his hands move, trying to figure out what she likes, what she doesn’t, his mouth grows sloppy and she keeps directing it back to hers. She comes this time, a few minutes before him and is over the euphoria by the time he starts his and stares awkwardly as he lets his face fall to her neck with exhaustion.

Coffee and clothes strewn all over the floor.

 


	107. Day 107

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiatus officially over. I had gotten to a point in the story where I needed to add two chapters because two were removed for no longer fitting with the overarching theme. Thankfully, I was able to write them both in a day which is much quicker than I imagined it would be. Thanks for your patience.

They’re visiting General Landry in his room, which is almost completely dedicated to his horticulture obsession. Plants sit on the floor, crawl up the walls, hang from the ceiling, and in the small area not occupied by leafy foliage, a bed sits with an oxygen tank, the ropy tubes leading back up to his nose.

“As much as I appreciate the visit, it’s unnecessary,” his voice is more gruff, raspier since the fire.

Sometimes at night she wakes with the smell of burnt flesh still stinging her nostrils.

“Colonel Carter promises me that my exile to this room will be up near the end of the week.” He’s wearing his comfy jammies, the blue ones with the pinstripes, and a bulky gray robe. He has a table used as a floating tray situated before him with the cup of tea and a few treats she brought him.

Daniel sits in the only available chair, his body posture unrelaxed, leaning forward with his elbows digging into his knees and a tight expression because he knows that the extradition will last longer than that. The others, they have discussions, perhaps a serious of coincidental impromptu meetings that she is never privy too because they know she would simply let the General know that for healthy reasons he’s to remain in this room for a longer period of time.

Perhaps they don’t invite her because they don’t seek her input, after all dealing with an ailing colleague isn’t the same as being able to liberate treasure, or siphon monetary funds from a Fortune 500 company into her own savings account on an outer rim planet, or reading Goa’uld dialects with otherworldly proficiency because the words still swirl around in her head and off her tongue with as much forethought as flicking an insect from her skin.

Daniel stumbles through some pleasantries concerning upcoming dinners and how deeply the General is missed at the formal nights that, yes, they’re still continuing, despite all of them hating getting dressed up just to eat spaghetti.

Her fingers trail along many plants in odd containers. Aluminum and tin cans hollowed out for planters and she supposed the ornaments should be quaint, but they’re running a bit tacky for her. Doesn’t know much about Tau’ri decorations but has watched enough on the Home and Garden channel to know that this doesn’t scream class.

Then her finger trails over a particularly indignant can, and the silver rim slices at her finger. With a yip, she pulls away her hand, blood globing on her fingertip, and the can and plant tumble and crash against the floor.

Both men halt their conversation, snapping their heads towards her with first confusion, then irritation. Then almost speak simultaneously of their disappointment.

“Vala,” Daniel just simply sighs, and despite their fabricated closeness, he still shakes his head at her.

“Ms. Mal Doran,” the General coughs shimmying up in bed against the pillows, as Daniel’s fingers flick to keep the oxygen line straight. “I’ll have to remind you that I do not toss things around in your quarters—”

“I’m sorry.” But no one listens or acknowledges her, as she stands, a rivulet of blood twisting down her index finger. “It was an accident.”

“Just—” and it’s almost like he holds himself back, because perhaps their closeness isn’t all that fabricated. He cranes his head back as he tends to the General. “Just go get a broom.”

Nods once, silently, unnoticed, and slips from the room, dropping her lacerated hand and the blood tickles against her skin as it flows a different way. As it flows more easily. The closest utility closet is located about two minutes away and when she engages the door, it sticks for a moment, before budging open. Inside there are two shelves and barely enough room to accommodate her form. She fits though, squishing in between, searching for the broom filed away behind the metal scaffolding on the first shelf.

Just as she reaches for it, the electronic panel on the door beeps once, then again, and the door snaps shut behind her, leaving her locked in the darkness of the closet without room to spin around.

 


	108. Day 108

No one comes for her.

Is unsure of the length of time she spent ruminating in the closet before she realized that she was very likely marooned, unless she finds her own way out. The jailbreak was quite an easy feat once her eyes adjusted to the permanent darkness. Thankfully, she was facing the back wall where an airduct was located, and just as she had the horrid thought of suffocating from lack of air in a coffin-sized utility closet, she noticed the slats. After several hours of picking the screws loose, she managed to pop the grate off to crawl through the dusty interiors of vents, until she spilled out into the armory.

Unfortunately, despite there being no possibility of any battles or the need for protection or retaliation, the armory is still fully alarmed and the second her bare feet slap the cold tile floor, an siren screams to life along with a red emergency light rotating on the ceiling.

Stands frozen in the middle of the room, the walls lined with an exorbitant number of rifles and zats, until the door engages with a whoosh. Cameron stands on the other side, attack ready with one of those Tau’ri sport cudgels of all things, and in the overstimulation of her mind by sound and sight, she finds the humor in his defense of what is quite literally a gun room with a baseball bat.

Ignores her laughter as he slips inside, flipping down a security panel on the wall by the exit, his fingers moving diligently over the keys to disengage the alarm. The light faltering, returning to the luminescent glow she’s grown accustomed to over the last several months and the room becomes eerily silent once again.

When he turns back, his face stern as ever with hard eyebrows and tight lips, she assumes he’s going to be short with her too, because no one ever allows her the chance to clarify.

Decides she may as well try to offer an explanation anyway. “I can—”

“Are you okay?” He takes a large step forwards and in that manufactured glow of incandescent lights, his expression almost turns sympathetic and concerned.

“I’m fine.” She keeps her voice steady, trying not to let his outward concern dissuade her. “I got trapped in—”

“No one has seen you for a day and a half.”

“What? No. Daniel and I went to go visit General—”

“Vala, that was yesterday morning.” The space between them is eaten up rather quickly, and although he is rigid, she can sense his relief.

“No that was—” His hand scoops up her own, and her throat tenses up, cutting off her words momentarily. “That was a few hours ago.”

Keeps her hand in his own, guiding her along to the entrance of the room and stooping to grab the bat he abandoned at the control panel with his free hand. “Well, thirty hours is a few hours ago.”

They twist around the corner of the hallway into a moderate sized unisex washroom that hasn’t been in use since all the non-vital crew were gated out. “No, it was only—”

But as she reflects, the only thing she can remember is being in the darkness so long that it felt like being in a void. Being part of nothingness while in the center of a vessel forced to be their more than temporary home.

He pulls a white box with a red addition symbol off the wall, and sets it on the closed lid of the toilet, leaning the bat alongside it.

“Was I really gone for that long?”

The question is spoken more aloud to herself. But Cameron nods, pulling out a bottle of disinfectant and a few bandages. He gestures to the sink and she turns the tap on, noticing for the first time that there are smudges of blood across her skin.

“I don’t think it’s that bad.” Speaks as if he knows her thoughts, his hands joining hers under the stream of lukewarm water as he pinches her index finger together, letting the tarry old blood drain out.

“This might sting a bit.” He shuts off the tap, then soaks one of the squares of gauze in a foul-smelling liquid before smothering her finger in it. It does bite, but her head is still dizzying from being in the darkness for that long.

When her eyes find his, he offers her a reassuring smile, as he peels back the wrapper from a more permanent bandage. The grin falters from his face, his eyes falling grim again, as he removes the tan adhesive from the package. “Jackson was pitching a fit.”

The leftover water drops on her arm start to give her a chill. “Why?”

“Because he couldn’t find you, Vala.” He answers with almost a shared indignation. The idea that she go missing without warning anyone, that she disappear without any cautionary signs.

“That idiot was the one who sent me for a broom,” almost huffs as he wraps the bandage around, not too tightly as to cut off her circulation, then crumples the wrapper, tossing it in the garbage. “You’re telling me he didn’t even bother to check the closest utility closet?”

“I’m telling you that when time passed and he realized that you didn’t just march off all pissed off, that he started ransacking the entire ship trying to find where you were.” Doesn’t look at her as he slips the internals back into the white box and clips it back onto the wall. “If that starts to itch tell Sam.”

She nods, remaining idle by the sink as he slips through the door, but stops, his hand holding it open, his eyes downtrodden. “I checked that place in the hall where you always sit, and when you weren’t there, I knew something was up.”


	109. Day 109

Daniel didn’t leave her alone for the rest of the day.

Embraced, wide, tight arms coiling around her and his ever-moving mouth never stopping.

Just words.

Words upon words.

Floating from his lips to her ear as he trailed her along the hallway, asking where she went for the umpteenth time, asking how she managed to get out.

The closet.

The vent.

The closet.

The vent.

Questioned about her injury, wanted to see the extent of it, but she kept pressing that it’s been properly disinfected and removing the bandage would only work in an infection’s favor.

He agreed with a quick nodding head, the book in his lap merely a disguise for once, as his fingers tapped without rhythm against her skin.

Meshed their hands together, trying not to pick at the tan adhesive.

She turns in for bed shortly after a welcome back dinner of cold leftovers she picked at while leaning away from one of the metal counters in the kitchen, as he asked more questions about the closet and the vent.

He invites himself along, actually doesn’t even do that, just follows her as she stands from the couch, nods in the direction of his room at the split in the corridor, which she accepts with reluctance.

Supposes after being alone for over a day she should wallow in the company of someone for a night.

When the weight of his hand drops to her hip, guiding the band of her sweat pants lower already, she halts him with the butt of her hand against his shoulder.

His eyes widen, then narrow, trying to translate her actions.

“What?”

“Out with it.”

“I don’t know what—”

“Just say what you have to say so we can go to bed, Daniel.”

Answers her with silence for so long that she assumes it’s his permanent answer. So she flicks on the light beside the bed, perching herself on the edge of his comforter and begins tugging out her pigtails.

He remains motionless.

Until he speaks two words she rarely hears from him.

“I’m sorry.”

Darts her head up, gauging the expression on his face, his eyes unable to meet hers, his hands balled and stiff at his side. “For what, Darling?”

“That I didn’t find you. That I didn’t even think to—” his voice cracks at the end of his sentence, face flushed and glasses gleaming an opaque white in the glare from the bedside lamp.

Stands, approaches, and again he doesn’t move. The heat of his skin, moist with a few tears underneath her cold fingers shocks and she tips his head up, offering him a reserved, if not rueful, smile.

 “It’s alright.”

“No, it’s not. You got stuck in—”

She kisses him.

For many reasons.

To end the sentence because if she hears the words ‘closet’ or ‘vent’ again, she’s liable to crawl back up in there.

To offer him solace, because she seems to be the only one on board capable of doing so.

But maybe—

Maybe, because she wants to.

Samantha wakes them well before breakfast, that’s how the rest of the team find out about her and Daniel. Her friend stands in the doorway, pointing, her mouth initially a little agape, but then shakes her head.

“I’ll process this later. I need you guys down in my lab now.”

Everyone gathers in a semicircle before a three-dimensional diagram of the ship as Samantha explains that there may be a solution by using the energy from the Asgard core to repower the shield just enough to take one final blast before they escape into hyperspace.

Cameron actually smiles.

But it disappears when Daniel drops his arm around her hips.

 

 


	110. Day 110

Samantha’s theory is a bust.

There’s no way to transfer the energy to the shield in the amount of time they have before the beam hits. Everyone filters out of the room, a storm cloud of bad information swirling above their heads.

She stays.

Touches Samantha’s arm gently, “it was a good idea.”

“I—just.” Samantha buries her head in her hands, fingers craggy with the pain of disappointing everyone when she had been so excited about the prospects yesterday. “I’m trying.”

“We know you are.” She leans against the desk next to her. “We don’t doubt you for a second.”

“You blame me though.”

“Samantha, you’ve saved our lives, we would never blame you.”

“No one’s said it, but the looks—”

“We all have our bad days.” Smiles down at her and feels reassurance when she smiles back. “Just don’t give up, I have faith in you.”

“Thank you, Vala.”

“Perhaps you should take the day off, spend it among other company.” She hints at what she knows, and Samantha purses her lips in and just nods, her cheeks flushing a bit.

She walks to the door, oddly fuller of hope than she has been in a while.

Daniel waits for her in the hallway as she closes the door behind her. “She okay?”

“Yes, a little upset at what we must think of her, which I assured her is only the highest.”

“You’re perfect, you know that?” His hands rub down her arms in a reassurance she doesn’t require, but appreciates, it’s hard for Daniel to do these things, she’s learned. Hard for him to be compassionate to others because of probable past traumas which she more than understands. She makes a point of never turning away his comforting touches.

“I had an inkling.”

He kisses her cheek and she closes her eyes. “I’ve got a few more hours of reading to do.”

“That’s fine, I might just stay in my room for a bit. I haven’t been back, it probably needs a good cleaning.”

“Alright. I’ll meet you in my room later tonight.” Gives her a final kiss, not quiet as chaste as she’s used to, and she arches an eyebrow at him excited for the prospect of sex is in the future.

She’s starting to settle in with Daniel a bit more, learn his twitches and what they mean, learn when he needs someone there to comfort him, to stroke his hair and whisper to him, and learn when he needs to be left alone to go off.

The relationship isn’t out of the nascent period yet, but she’s optimistic they could possibly forge it into something.

The door to her room hisses open and she almost jumps back into the hall. He’s lying on her bed, one bottle of whiskey in his hand another empty and drooling on the ground, his one leg flops off the side of her mattress.

“About time.”

“Oh Cameron.” Can’t help the amused grin playing on her lips as she approaches him. “You’re drunk.”

“Truth.” He points at her and drops the second bottle which begins to glug out over the floor before she rights it.

Stuffs the lid back on the bottle and sets it on her dresser. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m drunk as a skunk.”

“I gathered.”

“I’m shitfaced, Princess.”

“No.” Holds her mouth wide in fake shock as she removes his boots and tips his one leg back onto the bed, taking a seat on the edge of the mattress.

“Needed to be.”

“Samantha is trying, you shouldn’t be so hard on her.”

“Not that disappointment.”

“Cameron—”

“No, no, shhh shhh shhh—” he whispers, sitting up and pressing a finger to her lips. “I needed to be drunk so we could talk.”

She’s  tired to speak with him for two weeks about what happened, how she felt, and how past occurrences, past lives bore around inside of her and froze her up. “Why would you possibly—”

“I love you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“You’re right, I don’t fully, but I could.”

“Cameron—”

“I just feel better when I’m with you, and it’s not because I feel better, it’s because I know you’re happy and safe.”

She rolls her eyes, about to shift off the bed with a fantastic rebuttal, but as she stands, he captures her lips, the alcohol is strong on his breath, but it doesn’t make him any less of a good kisser.  

They keep his pants half-on, toss hers to the other side of the mattress and as she rides him, he cups her breasts through her shirt, slobbering through the fabric, then just holds her to him, plants his ear at her chest and holds her until she comes. Until he comes. Keeps her stationary as he softens inside her.

“I’ll wait.” He speaks to her ribs, strong hands holding up the small of her back.

“Wait for what, Darling?” Runs fingers through his hair, over his sweaty, weary face and he nuzzles at her touch.

“For whatever you want to do with Jackson.”


	111. Day 111

Daniel finds out.

It happens at breakfast, she doesn’t remember the comment that sets him off, but knows Cameron says it.

Daniel stands shouting and Cameron follows suit and someone flips the table.

It’s loud and frightening because there’s no place to escape it, and she didn’t mean for it to happen this way, but no one would see it any other.

No one would accuse her of merely helping instead of instigating for entertainment.

No one would accuse her of using sex for comfort, not even her own, instead of using sex as a tool of manipulation because that’s the version of her they know, the one beaten and scratched away in the remnants of Qetesh.

Turns her back on the situation, as Sam shouts at Daniel to calm himself and Teal’c restrains Cameron from behind. General Landry barks coughing orders to calm down or be sequestered to their rooms for the rest of the day like children.

No one asks her to stop.

No one requests that she come back.

No one begs her to stay.


	112. Day 112

It’s not fair to any of them. Not fair for her to have to pick. Not fair for one of them to be denied and she doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t have anyone to speak with and so she disappears down into the next level of dorms. Breaks into some low-level private’s room, who is now safely back on Earth or slowly making the trek there through thick soupy time.

Falls asleep on the ground beside the bed. She roots around upon wakening and is a bit disappointed she didn’t find as much pornographic material as she expected, just a pile of Cosmos. She sits and reads and ignores the growling in her stomach or her flinching at every unknown sound or the voices trickling back in her brain.

Amazed at how she can be stuck on a ship that’s stuck in time and still manage to disappear.


	113. Day 113

“I figured you might need this.” She’s glad it’s Samantha on the other side of the door and not, well, anyone else. She’s also glad that she’s brought a rather large bottle of wine and two glasses. Her hair looks like it’s grown a little which is ridiculous because it’s only been four months. She used to have a problem with the word only.

“I figured you might need these.” She slaps down a Cosmo on top of the massive pile she hauled out from that room.

“Vala.” Samantha shakes her head and pops the cork from the bottle, it’s been previously opened. “What happened?”

“Honestly, I haven’t the faintest clue.” She accepts the very full glass, takes a sip and watches the way the liquid swirls, incarnadine ripples, and blood heavy in her hair.

“Vala.”

“Honestly, you were there. Cameron told me to go help Daniel.”

“I think if you’re involved in a relationship with Cameron, that’s not the way he meant.”

“It’s not what I meant either, I got Daniel angrier, so he would yell at me and feel better like he normally does—”

“That’s not—”

“You’ve seen it, that’s the gist of our exchanges.”

“Obviously—” Samantha finishes off her glass and holds the bottle up. She nods, and her friend refills both glasses. “That didn’t happen this time.”

“He finished.” She sips, still uncomfortable with the color of the wine. “Just in a different method.”

“Ugh,” Samantha groans at her poor choice of words, hurrying to replenish her glass again.

She gulps down the last in her glass leaving only faintly pink liquid and swirls around the stem to watch it trek around the inside. “How are they, the boys?”

“They’re on lockdown, and not too happy,” Samantha hiccups the last part out and smiles blissfully.

Then she notices for the first time, that her friend’s hands are shaking and a little uneven in their balance, something not caused from being inebriated. Reaching forward, her hand moves Samantha’s down from the wine bottle. “Are you, all right?”

“Yeah—yeah.” When she doesn’t falter in her glare, her visual dissection of a woman who’s the closest thing she has to a friend, Samantha continues, “well, not really. No.”

“You needn’t be upset about—”

“No. No. Umm,” Samantha sniffles and wipes the wetness away from under her eyes with the balls of her palm. “Your fight just happened to coincide with our fight.”

She pulls the bottle away and corks the top, setting it aside with the two glasses because neither of them is young enough or naïve enough to think one bottle of wine could cull their issues. A helpful ear on the other hand. “What happened.”

“He got upset when I mentioned General O’Neill.”

“Oh Sam, we’re cut from very different cloth but somehow still make the same dress.”


	114. Day 114

“Ms. Mal Doran,” General Landry beckons her from the mouth of his room as she tries to tiptoe by to visit Samantha in the lab. She has a few requests for the matter converter, creator, reorganizer, whatever. “A word.”

His voice sounds terse and she already knows she’s going to get spoken to as a child by a supposedly older Tau’ri man, she could have very well been Qetesh when he was born, she has no idea how many years of her life she truly lost. With a reserved sigh she pads towards his room, forgoing shoes and socks again because the ship is entirely too hot at all times. If it was appropriate to flounce around in short shorts and halter top, she would be more than content.

The General’s bedroom rainforest is constantly on the grow. Tiny sprouts, bigger tendrils coiling out of different painted pots, he gets whoever’s bored to paint him up a pot, she’s made a panda and a night sky one so far. Some of the pots are just filled with soil and nothing else, some are overturned yet to be used, the same bland terracotta color, and one is smashed in the corner. She isn’t going to ask because they all have their breaking points.

She hasn’t reached hers yet.

His back is to her as he busies himself with preening and pruning various plants, spritzing with a tiny little bottle and attending to bent leaves and stalks. The procrastinating makes her fingers twitch and before she can stop herself she finds her mouth rambling, “Sir, I know exactly what you’re going to say, and I just want to make it positively known that I—”

“Here.” He sets a pot on his desk, which is covered by various other pots and plants and packets of seeds. There’s a small stalk with a few large leaves hanging off it. It looks like a teensy palm tree. She’s always wanted to go see them, but she was barely allowed off base.

“Umm, okay?”

“This is for you. It’s called a money tree, I thought you’d find that amusing.”

He doesn’t talk about Cameron or Daniel or how they both went a bit wonko over her. Doesn’t blame her for making two of his best men act like children. Just smiles and presses the pot towards her. It’s has a pastel green rim and a dark blue pot with a few red dots thrown in.

“Thank you, Sir.”


	115. Day 115

“So this is where you’ve been hiding.” His body falls into place next to her, sliding him out into the middle of the hallway, there’s really only room for one in the alcove.

“One of them.” She grins when he places his hand on her knee and it feels like they’re back in the cafeteria, sitting beside each other, eating Jello and giving shifty eyes.

His warm hand makes her hotter as it jostles her knee back and forth. “I’m sorry things got so out of control.”

“It’s not your fault.”

He squints his eyes, darting them up into the corner of the corridor judging her words. “Well—”

“Okay, it’s exactly half your fault.”

“In my defense, I never hit him.”

“That’s very big of you.”

“In my defense, I think I’m crazy about you.” When her head tears up to judge the seriousness on his face he grins, light and weightless. He grunts while standing, his thigh probably stiff from all the running, and offers her a hand.

She slaps her hand into his, popping up beside him and drags her fingers over the pricklies on his chin. “Then you’re forgiven.”   


 


	116. Day 116

“Samantha, I have a list of things I require.” It’s a short list, only about ten things, and tampons is one of them because some wine loving astrophysicist forgot to update them in the inventory.

“Oh.” Samantha glances up from her computer screen, she has her glasses on the end of her nose. She pushes them up by the bridge and blinks while scanning the list. “Are all these necessary? We’re supposed to be conserving power.”

“The first three would make me very happy.” She flashes a bright, fake smile.

Samantha nods to her cello, understanding. “I can do the first three.”


	117. Day 117

It’s nearing midnight and she cannot sleep again. Nightmares and voices, voices in the nightmares, the words that men have both said and not said to her. Words heavy and pregnant making more, nasty little words and she can’t tune any of it out sometimes.

In the blackness of space.

In the bleakness of the vessel.

In the brightness of the beam.

Zooms around another corner lightless and speedy on the roller skates she had Sam conjure up. Of course, she never used Tau’ri roller blades, but they had something similar on her planet for skimming over the paved streets in the commerce area, the city was large, and transportation wasn’t always readily available.

Her mother taught her how to use them, she would bolt to the stores to grab bread or other needed groceries.

Then later she would bolt to the chemist to grab her mother’s medicine.

She spins at the next corner, no jumps, her mother hated jumps, always warned about jumps, said she wouldn’t make it out of one. Her legs ease into the turn and balance out perfectly gaining speed by crouching lower, gain stability with smoother, slower shifts.

What would her mother think of her now?

Music blasts through her ears, through headphones, big and cushioned and they make the beat of the songs, the bassline, hum. She also got one of those music players, not quiet as advanced as Cameron’s or Daniel’s, but she can feed a cd inside and it will play with her as she skates.

It drowns out the voices.

The speed and the skates.

The beat and the bass.

He appears out of no where, twisting into her lane from an adjacent hallway and she tries to stop too quickly and trips up in the skates, the heavy bulky skates with four wheels each, and all it takes is for one awkward landing of her foot. She feels her ankle roll beneath her and her body topple forward. Her chin bashes off the ground and her two skates intermingle.

In his defense, he tried to catch her, turned with wide eyes and spun his shoulders towards her, his arms out, his hands ghosting just above her shoulders. Smashes her head off the ground right at his feet.

When she opens her eyes, she’s pulled sideways into his lap. The stars are back, spinning over her eyes, little blips and explosions of light distracting her until she blinks them away. He’s talking to her and she’s not answering. She can’t hear. Just watches his mouth brilliantly make words with no sound.

He touches her chin, and her eyes roll back in her head from pain, his fingers have a bit of blood on them, nothing worthy of a bandage. She tries to sit up, but the skates roll and she gasps in pain. Finally, after more than a few seconds of shouting at her, he yanks the earphones from her head, dangling them around her neck.

“Jesus don’t scare me like that, woman.” Bows his forehead to rest against hers and she closes her eyes reveling in the proximity, the caring.

“You cut me off.”

“I didn’t know this level became a roller rink at midnight.” He presses the sleeve of his sweater against her chin to stem the bleeding. “You okay?”

“Fine.” Tries to stand and the same ankle gives out on her. This time her gasp is more of a howl.

Flaps out of his sweatshirt for her to keep it pressed to her chin and bends his knee to offer her a seat between his thighs. He squeezes down her calves, trying to discern where the injury is. When he reaches her left ankle, she tries to yank it away from him. He raises his empty hands. “Okay, it’s okay.”

“Is it bad?” Leans over to try and see through her striped tights.

“I won’t know until I get the skates off, and in better light.” Before she questions how they’re going to do that he hoists her into the air, his arms under her back and her legs.

“Cameron.”

“Just humor me.” He smiles, but it’s tense, and while he carries her up a floor, his expression, his dedication, never fades from his face.

At his room he sets her to perch on the edge of his mattress, and slowly unlaces the skates, threading his fingers through until he can wiggle one off. It doesn’t hurt, and she wiggles her toes at him, but he fails to react if he notices. The second skate he’s more careful with, makes precise plucks of the laces with his fingers, stretches the tongue until the skate practically falls off.

Resting her foot on his thigh, he rolls down the top of her sock around her heel and off her toes, then touches her ankle softly.  “Oh yeah, there’s the swelling.”

“Is it broken?”  Her head leaning over, brushing against his hair and when he glances up at her, she grins nervously.

“No, probably just a bad roll.” Shakes her knee on her good leg and this might be the way he conveys comfort now. He stands and grabs a pile of clothes from inside his dresser. Before she asks him what he plans on doing, he pushes her to settle back on the bed, raising her leg with the pile of tightly folded sweaters. “I’ll go get you ice for it.”

His blankets, his pillows smell like him and she’s vaguely aware of the music filtering out through the earphones around her neck. He returns with an ice pack to wrap around her ankle, a glass of water and some pills for her to take. She doesn’t argue, swallows them and sticks out her tongue for him to inspect. When he doesn’t laugh she sighs, “Cameron, I’m fine.”

“You need to be more careful.” His back is to her as he flits around the room, gathering clothing, and tossing a shirt and a pair of boxers beside her on the bed. “I’m going to go shower, that’s if you want to change out of your riding getup.”

“It’s a lovely outfit.”

“It would look better with a helmet and some knee pads.”


	118. Day 118

Was barely awake when Cameron returned from the shower.

She managed, with a little bit of difficulty, to shuck her tights from her legs, tossing them over the side of the bed, and shimmying his boxers up. Her sweater and t-shirt were much easier to get rid of, his navy-blue shirt cooler and much more comfortable.  

Everything smelled of him and she shuddered into the familiarity, the safeness, the irony of needing to feel protected on a frozen spaceship. Felt him tug the earphones from around her ear and grab her music player off the ground turning it off and setting it on his side table. He spread a blanket over them, his fingers diligently working her pigtails out of her hair, and when he finished, he clicked off the lamp on his side of the bed.

He smelled fresh but still like him, and he turned towards her resting his head near hers and stroked her arm and she can’t remember him stopping.

Then it was dark, screaming and red and blood seeping from her hands, running over her fingers from her wrists. Dug in underneath her nails as her fiancé reaches for her, cries out t to protect the innocent, before she rips the scalp from his skull.

The innocent.

And her stomach is flush with life.

The first life.

Then Qetesh became her life.

And no one else’s.

“Hey. Hey.” His hand steadies her, solid and soft, petting back her hair from her face as she gulps in breaths. “You’re okay. You’re right here.”

“Cameron?” Questions because flashes still come, evil blood-toothed grins on the backdrop of the brimstone of her childhood home.

No need for graves. No need for graves.

“What—” She leans forward but a horrible pain gnaws its way up her leg.

“Easy.” Directs her ankle back to the pile of clothing.

He gave her clothing.

She plucks at the golden emblem on the shirt. She killed so many children. Held so many children as they stopped breathing and she screamed for mercy, and a minuscule area in the dark reaches of her mind said good, because it was unfair that she couldn’t raise hers.

The tears are hot, her body is hot, she might vomit. “Cameron?”

“You’re okay.” Hands press at her cheeks and direct her face towards him. His eyes are wide and clear in the darkened room and he is unflinching. “You’re not wherever you just were. You’re in my room with me.”

“Your room.” Darts her eyes around, a blue blanket, an orange model of a plane, a small slanted TV.

“Yeah,” his voice runs quieter as he scoots closer. “You were roller blading and listening to Captain and Tennille, which, Honey, we need to talk about your music tastes.”

“I—” she reaches down to poke the plump skin around her ankle. “I fell.”

“I cut you off.”

“You did.” She nods a twitch of a grin on her lips. Her head settles next to his on the pillow, noses almost brushing.

“I couldn’t help it.” Grabs her hand, kissing it, and she feels the coarse hair on his chin. “Your outfit was so damn sexy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song referenced is "Love Will Keep Us Together" by Captain and Tennille.


	119. Day 119

Each of them has a separate day to do laundry. Six crew members seven days a week, a once a week washing seems quite contrary, but she’s stopped wearing her BDUs, started dressing more in the clothing she purchased with Samantha, some of them still have the tags because they never allowed her off the base. She’s been to Kansas, and a downtown restaurant. Losing her memory may have been the most freedom she ever got.

Since she’s straying away from her SGC enforced outfits, she has a little more laundry than most and carries it down the three floors in a white basket that’s usually overflowing at the brim. Takes care to bury her unmentionables in the middle of the shirt and pants shell. It’s a nice workout, not exactly basketball or some other little Tau’ri game, but she still has her balancing skills from the brief stint as a waitress. Often wonders what Sal is up to, but knows he’s moving at a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a speed. He’ll finish his action when she’s dead and she chuckles to herself at her own morbidity.

“Something funny?” Daniel asks. He’s leaning against the wall outside her door, reading a smaller book than usual, perhaps just a novel, it makes him look like one of the sweet country boys who would come calling on her, reading her scripts of poetry and dancing with her underneath a canvas of stars.

She shrugs up the basket at her side. “I was just thinking of Sal.”

The book snaps shut as he chuckles, “I’m surprised you remember Sal after all the trauma your brain went through.”

“I don’t remember much about the two weeks. Mostly the end of it. But I remember Sal was a nice man.”

She was afraid.

For the whole two weeks all she felt was fear, she remembers all of it so clearly, wanting the passion fruit martini, her white flower drifting from her hair, sleeping on a couch in Sal’s back room, stripping Cameron and handcuffing him to a bed. Thought he’d be mad, but he was just relieved she could take care of herself.

“I remember that being the worse two weeks of my life because I was so afraid we lost you.” He touches the side of her face, fingers lingering and not as warm as they used to be. “So afraid I lost you.”


	120. Day 120

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 4 month anniversary!

Fell asleep beside him as he held her, his only request. He burrowed his face into the side of her neck tickling, and she giggled at his breath, misty against her skin.

Then she saw fire.

Chained to a bench and she saw his face desperate as he tried to help her. The oil ablaze and slowly winding through the Ori maze, the face above her from Tomin’s bed threatening to masticate her alive. A baby within her that she didn’t want but didn’t have the heart to rid herself of, a baby whose last action was to throttle her, and she can’t breathe because of all the smoke, all the heat.

“Vala?”

There’s a soft glow of a lamp, her lamp behind him, but she can feel the thick stone against the back of her thighs, feel the shackles against her wrists as she wrenched to get away, the burning on her feet, her toes, the ash in her lung.

“Vala. Hey, it’s okay.”

Her shoulders restrained now and she’s fighting, but the air is thin, so thin and heavy with smoke, but her body moves, displaces against another, radiating warmth and she settles. Was in nothingness, strangled away and absent of life, but woke up holding him.

Wakes up holding him.

Her chin against his shoulder and she blinks and she’s in an ornate gown, not undies and a tank top. “Hey, you had a bad dream.” His fingers dance through her hair. “It was just a dream.”

“It happened,” she croaks out, wrapping her arms around his midsection, clamping on to him because if he releases her she might blink back and be burned alive for a third time.

“What happened?” He strokes her back, but her airways bundle tightly in irritation from smoke.

“Don’t let them.”

“Don’t let them what?”

“Hurt me again.”

Words, always words, and they try to topple out of his mouth, but he clears his throat and drives them away while his chest hitches and she bounces with it, leaning her forehead against his shoulder until she falls back asleep.

 

 


	121. Day 121

The voices undulate in her head, moving as a solid entity, the sound voracious in her ears.

When she was young her mother would take her for walks along the beach not that far from their cottage, hold her hand as cold, salty waves lapped at her bare toes. She would scoop up different shells, clams and conches and cowries, listening to the depth of their reiteration of the waves she heard first hand.

Her mother died with gray skin, and sunken eyes that used to rival the ocean in clarity and hue. She died with a jar of shells collected over twelve years ripening on her side table. She died holding her hand. She waited with her arm held out, waiting for the next period of consciousness but with the last gasp sibilated from her mouth, she understood too clearly.

Then her father came, took ownership to the house with his awful new and very pregnant wife, the one who started making over her bedroom before she had even been evicted. Her mother had tried her best to shroud her from the awful things waiting around every corner, but she quickly grew to recognize that trusting anyone brought immediate downfall.

Dug furrows in the field she cleared with her first fiancé until the sun set over the hills from the distance. She couldn’t see her childhood home from their new plot of land, but she had known her fiancé before she was taken by Fierenze, had gone to school with him up until that point. He knew her mother and her mother had liked him, setting them in the backyard as young children with blocks and dolls and a pitcher of iced tea picked fresh from the garden.

_Your mother watches over us now._

Would tell her those words as they sat on the top of a hill, camping out in a tent because the house hadn’t begun to be constructed yet and she was hopeful. She was in love and felt safe in his arms and although her traumas floated in the top of her mind like wood on water, she relaxed and felt excited about the future, eager to construct their house, to solidify their vows, to procreate with him and raise their beautiful children to never know sadness or hardship or to ever feel unsafe.

Their neighbor came to her one day, a toddler hanging off her hip, and beckoned her to help watch over her other child, an infant, that her husband was currently seeing to. The expression on her face was weary and abnormal, but she had never dealt with a sick child, only an ailing mother. She agreed, wiping her dirty hands onto her apron and following her neighbor into the house.

Qetesh, in her old host’s body which was eerily similar to hers, black hair, lean build, not too tall, sat barely clothed on a straw-filled couch. The grin she gave is present in all her nightmares, evil and wide-toothed, wolfish and predatory.

Her neighbor begged forgiveness as Qetesh threatened to kill her children, threatened to take her body, and after she was sacrificed, held down in place as the snake burrowed through the base of her neck, the very first thing Qetesh did was snap the child’s neck.

Screams. Knows she screams because the pain, despite being over two decades old and healed with multiple devices and sarcophagi, still burns as if it’s fresh. The lack of flesh at her stomach indicating the loss of a child, a girl, Qetesh all but tore from her still shocks. That life and the several lives she’s lived since smash together and mottle until she cannot tell present and past.

The scream doesn’t stop when she opens her eyes to an unfamiliar room, when she realizes she’s not on a bed, but piled against the arm of a couch with the television playing a movie she’s barely following. Doesn’t stop until hands capture her own, pulling her from the murky recesses of her mind and onto one of the wooden floats.

The movie flickers into place, then the calming words she hears near nightly as he comforts in sweet cadences, dragging his fingers up and down her arm. He crouches before her, and half grins when she exhales harshly, her eyes focusing on his focusing on her.

Beside her, she traces a hand on her shoulder to Daniel, who fell asleep as well, the pattern of the couch worn into his cheek as he strums his thumb over her skin. Beyond them, three other faces hang in the air cautious, frightened, worried.

“I’m sorry.” When she raises her hand to wipe against her forehead, he releases his hold, but hovers, like her hand might fall from the air like an injured butterfly. “Bad dream.”

“I’ll say.” General Landry observes her with wide eyes.

 


	122. Day 122

“You have a lot of bad dreams.”

Her hand smooths away the damp hair curling against his forehead, still wet from his recent shower, his skin still hot from the temperature of the water. He likes to keep his bathing to a private practice which she understands, but he always comes back almost as sweaty as he went in.

“You have a lot of headaches.”

His chuckle jostles his head against her peaked knees, her fingers comb through his hair and watch the furrows they create. “Yeah, I do. More now than before.”

“It’s from all that reading.” Plucks his glasses from his face and folds them, laying them back against his chest just as he sighs at her antics. Despite their relationship being uncanny and completely abnormal, something things never change.

“It’s from the pressure of space.” Snatches her hand up from stroking around his jaw and neck. “I’m susceptible to sinusitis and sinus headaches when the pressure changes with Earth’s seasons.” His fingers curl around hers, wilting like a thin smoldering piece of wood.

“But we’re in space.” Says it because it’s what he expects. Can’t appear too knowledgeable, lest he feel threatened, and he’s already in a very sensitive position.

“Even though we’re inside the climatized ship, the space outside still exerts a heavy pressure.”

“Where do you feel this pressure?”

Doesn’t answer, just directs their balled hands, their mound of fingers to his left eye. She bends and pecks a light kiss to his eyelid, smoothing out his hair again as he drifts to sleep.


	123. Day 123

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Daniel slips from her side, pulling an object wrapped in tissue paper out of the top drawer of his desk. He sneaks back into bed, directing her arm back over his chest as she nuzzles into his shoulder. “I had Sam call this up on the creator for you.”

Under the thin veil of white tissue paper sits a circle made out of many bands of wood. There is a thread spun through, along which beads sit like drops of water on a spider’s web. At the bottom of the circle three sinewy ropes of leather dangle, and large dappled feathers rustle at the end. It’s beautifully ornate, yet with only simple supplies so the meaning must be significant. “What is it?”

“It’s a dream catcher, originally it was a protective charm used for Ojibwe children.”

“Oh.”

“But the modernization of them has a sort of folklore where the tighter the mesh is here.” He takes her hand, drawing it along the leather thread woven within the circle. “The harder it is for bad dreams to squeeze through.”  He cups her cheek and brushes his lips over her jaw. Between breaths he adds, “so you should hang it above your bed.”

The charm slips from her blanket covered lap as she leans back into his pillows, allowing him more access to her neck. “It will vanquish my nightmares?”

“Maybe not that drastic, but it can’t hurt.”


	124. Day 124

“Does it still hurt?” The weight of her foot rests in his hand and she hides from his view from behind her knee.

Could lie to him.

Would lie to him.

Should.

But she doesn’t because straining the truths and falsities from the din of sounds  in her mind is an extra step adding to her exhaustion. Hid behind lies for so long in fear of being hurt, physically and mentally. She flips a page in her magazine scrolling over the hottest accessories from autumn two years ago for the fourth time that morning. “Yes.”

“Maybe we should talk to Sam.”

“It’s fine.” Turns the page to reveal the same underwear advertisement.

Rubs his thumb over her ankle and it doesn’t hurt, just a concentrated pressure. “You just said it still hurts.”

“It’s fine.”

“Do you still have the hand device? You could heal it up a bit.”

Doesn’t like using the ring. It takes too much concentration and way more energy than she currently has. Used it on him a few weeks ago when on garbage duty he got to close to the incinerator while the flames lapped out. He told her it was fine, but the burn was at least second level with visible scarring to follow on the skin of his arm and she did not want to become on of those couples who share matching inkings.

“It’s fine.” Whips the next page across to people sitting having a picnic in the park. They’re all assholes.

Then her foot twitches in his hand, his thumb rubbing over the arch, and she bucks at him without the intent of causing real harm. He easily stops her foot from impacting into the side of his jaw as he chuckles. “I had to see if you still had feeling.”

“Hmm, perhaps you should try kissing it better.” Fingers do a brisk flip through the rest of the magazine, and she sets it to her side, lips tight and her eyes wide.

“Well—” his hand covers her knee, then her thigh as he crawls forward, and she holds the weight of him. “We’d have to keep your ankle elevated and still.”

Hand blankets her hip and she draws his mouth to hers. “We’ve had to deal with worse.”

Cups her left breast first through her Sol’s shirt, then under it and she rolls her spine into his touch, warm and kneading. “Talking about all the shower sex?”

Lips wet her cheek as she gasps, “we never really did perfect it.”

“I’m feeling like today is our lucky day, Princess.”


	125. Day 125

“What are your bad dreams about.”

He’s not a cuddler, but they’re cuddling to the best of his efforts, arm laying heavy across her bare back, his fingers pulling through her hair as his heart relaxes under her ear. Sometimes it picks up a random points, starts beating more rapid, then settles again.

“Everything.” Angles her chin so it juts his ribs when she speaks.

Not wearing his glasses, but he makes the same expression he does when he glances over the brim and down at her. “Everything?”

Has to learn to stop confusing them, physically, sexually they’re difference is intense, but when she speaks to them, he pressures and pushes for answers, always the learned scholar. “Qetesh, my life before Qetesh, Adria, Ver Isca, getting burned alive, getting burned alive again, getting sucked through a supergate, Area 51, Dancing with the Stars—”

“Area 51? You never went to—”

The judgement rides tense in his muscles and sticks to his bones making him all together uncomfortable to rest upon. Stretches her back under the pretense of rolling away and occupying her own side of the bed. “No, not yet.”

He leans up on one elbow, his attention on her but his eyes falling closed longer and longer. “Vala, you work for the government of the United States.”

“So does the IOA.” Spins away from him, collecting her legs to her chest when she enters into the icy expanse of untouched sheet. “I’ve heard the horror stories.”

“From who?” Chuckles a little, but doesn’t dare let it fully out of his throat. His hand scoops her shoulder and rubs.

“Everyone.”

“Everyone.”

“Woolsey, O’Neill, Cameron.”

Chuckles again, louder this time and presses his lips to her shoulder. “Woolsey is just trying to scare you straight, O’Neill is just picking on you for fun and Mitchell—”

Shrugs her shoulder away, bundling the sheets below her chin and speaking directly into the cotton. “Ironically enough, I didn’t want to end up stuck in some cell on display for Tau’ri diplomats.”

“Hey.” The bed shifts with his weight as he shuffles towards her, his arm touching her shoulder, gauging the temperature of the water, and when she doesn’t pull away he hooks his arm around her stomach settling in behind her, kissing, her shoulder, up to her neck and stopping at her ear. “No one on this ship would let that happen.”

“No?”

“I wouldn’t let that happen.”


	126. Day 126

“This is ridiculous.”

“You look adorable.” She smooths the sheet over his shoulders and pins it together at the back with one of her hair claws. “Just like a little boy.”

“This was a bad idea.” He stands, from the chair almost making her drop the scissors.

“No, that hair was a bad idea.” Pushes him back down by the shoulder and when he sighs, unpleased, she copies it, exacerbating it. “Really Daniel, how could you have let your hair grow so unkempt?”

“I can’t cut my own hair.”

“Which is why I’m here.”

“I’m going to leave here with one ear, aren’t I?”

“Less than that if you don’t stop your complaining.”


	127. Day 127

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is one of my favorite chapters :)

“Cameron, do you hear that?” nods her head backwards, nose brushing his cheekbone. In his sleep he moans and tightens his arms around her torso. When she calls to him again, he doesn’t respond.

She sighs, prying one of his fingers away from her ribs, loosening his hold and slipping out in a breach of his limbs. She yanks on his t-shirt, the navy blue one, and pulls on her panties before venturing out into the hallway.

It is early morning and she swore she heard crying.

The metal is especially cold against her bare feet as they cool from being torn from the furnace that was his body. Their normal sleep stance is him melting behind her, curving to her body, and somewhere in the tossing and turning, she ends up in a fetal position, facing away from him, her knees drawn up and resting on his thighs. That’s how it’s been the last three times.

Her ankle is still soft and tapping more than just the pad of her foot down causes a biting pain to shoot through her shin and up to her knee, but the crying does not cease, so she hobbles down the hallway, lights dimmed from ill movement of bodies, and climate control off.

She can see her own breath.

Peers into Samantha’s lab, but finds her no where to be found, the lights turned out and even the little Asgardian has been put to bed. The crying is now unending and doesn’t sound anything like Samantha’s usual brand of silent but gasping sobs. It’s higher pitched, not quite as recognizable as a baby’s wails for attention, but perhaps the crying of a young child, scared and hiding.

“Hello,” she whispers into the soft darkness, the lights only pop on as she sneaks under them and immediately snuff out after.

Then she sees him.

In her alcove sits a small child, a boy with cherubic hair bouncing around his face. He’s wearing little brown overalls and a navy-blue shirt underneath and tiny red sneakers. His head hidden in his bent knees, she wagers he’s about three-years-old.

Her back hugs the opposite wall, not wanting to scare the little boy away, not really knowing, or caring, how he came to be on this horrid ship. “Little one,” calls to him, foot raised like a resting bird flat behind her on the wall.

He snuffles loudly, tears making his pale skin glisten like a mirror. There’s a smattering of freckles across his cheeks despite there being nothing akin to a natural sun or starlight near them. When he blinks, his eyes are brimmed with redness, but they’re the palest, more striking blue she’s ever seen.

“Little one, what’s wrong?” Like there are not a dozen reasons for his tears.

His plump lips purse together when he hiccups away another open-mouthed lament causing his golden-brown curls to bounce and tickle his nose. He flares tiny nostrils and then swipes at his snotty nose with the back of his hand.

He’s absolutely adorable.

“It’s alright.”

It’s not.

But her hand runs through his thick hair, feels his curls and he stops crying, staring up at her with a slightly agape mouth. His arm is wet and cold when she lays her hand there, and she rubs to bring a little bit of warmth back to his teensy body. “Tell me why you’re crying.”

He blinks at her, into her, with those piecing eyes for someone so small, and with a petite voice, he replies. “I don’t want to die.”

“Oh, Darling, we’re not going to die.” Thumbs rub away the residue at his cheeks and he’s so cold and clammy. “That’s why Samantha put up the time dilation field. So, we don’t die.”

Without warning he wraps his chubby little arms around her neck, his hair smells like honey under her nose and his hands play in her bed worn curls as she did his. “I promise you, you’re not going to die.”

He retracts from her, a piece of her hair still tugging in his fat hand. His eyes, those eyes, narrow and in his small voice, but with an eerily adult stoicism, he corrects. “It stops time not death.”

“What do you—”

“Hey, hey, Princess, what the hell are you doing out here?”

Cameron stands before her blocking out any image of the boy. His hands are firm on her shoulders and his eyes analyzing her. She tries to push him aside, but when she does, full weight falls to her ankle and it buckles. He plants his arm under hers and slides to the side so she can view the alcove, fully illuminated and completely emptied.

“Cameron, what—”

“Why didn’t you stop? I called you.”

“I—I’m sorry Darling, I didn’t hear you.” She points to the alcove and if she squints she can still see the child hiding his tears. “There was a boy there.”

“What?”

“I heard crying and I left the room, there was a little boy, he was about three and he had the most gorgeous hair—”

“Vala, I think you sleepwalked.” He wears a small expression of bemusement and tucks the strand of hair the boy played with behind her ear.

“What?”

“You were asleep when you came out here. Was it a—” his hand slides down her arm, and then touches between her shoulders. “Jesus, you’re freezing, let’s go back to—”

“But the little boy was—” pivots again to point to the alcove, but the weight of her body on her bad ankle breaks her precarious balance and her foot crashes to the metal, pain igniting throughout to her hip.

She’s still hollering when he scoops her up, so efficient so gentle, and it’s becoming too familiar.

He stays perched at the foot of the bed, icing her ankle and feeding her painkillers as she trips into light sleep after light sleep.

She doesn’t dream of the boy again.

 


	128. Day 128

Can’t sleep after that, it doesn’t matter if she’s with Daniel or with Cameron or by herself, she cannot sleep. Her body becomes languid and her joints begin to ache. She misses breakfast and dinner and people stop by her room to try and drag her out but she’s not there. She’s watching from the alcove, the cozy alcove with her blanket thrown over her shoulders as she listens to Samantha play her cello, she’s playing a nursery rhyme, at least that’s what Daniel said it was.

The ship is cold under her cheek and there’s hardly any light in this bend in the hallway but she might be able to live in this tiny area if someone would be kind enough to bring her food. Noises of climate kicking on fades and constructs itself in words. Adria calling her mother, her own voice begging Tomin to bring back her daughter so she might hold her, feed her, and her breasts ached like they ache now.


	129. Day 129

“Come on, Princess.” She’s floating again, over the metallic floors shining in crimson and platinum, his boots tap with purpose and he’s wearing that navy-blue shirt.

When she angles her head catching glimpse of his strong jaw, lips stern as always, she whispers his name, but she’s pregnant and simultaneously not pregnant. Dressed as mother of the Ori, and in a netted dress as Qetesh, and in sweats and a black tank top which she likes the most. Her body racks with pain from birthing a baby she never conceived and is hollow from tumbling in beds full of men until she bruises, of Jaffa warriors volunteering as sacrifices.

She’s also in his arms.

“Cameron?”

“Shhh.” Pecks her forehead, his cheek resting in her hair and he whispers, “go back to sleep.”

 

 


	130. Day 130

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always know which chapters are gonna get the comments :)

In the mirror her face looks older than she remembers. The dark circles from her insomnia have only flourished with recent nights.

Reaching into the cabinet she pulls out her toothbrush and toothpaste, accidentally knocking the box of tampons, now three quarters empty, onto the floor. Shoving her toothbrush into the corner of her mouth, she bends and grabs the box silently cursing Samantha because there aren’t going to be enough when—

She’s late.

She’s late and she stares down at the spilled tampons and her toothbrush falls from her mouth and how late is she exactly because she can’t remember the last time she needed one of these.

Leaving everything on the floor, she rushes into the hallway, wearing only her pajamas consisting of a tank top and shorts because she forgot to do her laundry day yesterday. She hasn’t moved this fast since skating down the hall the night she hit Cameron, hasn’t skated since it took her over a week and a stint with the healing device to completely put pressure on that ankle again.

She taps at the door to the book room quickly, then louder, then slams her fist against the door, sometimes he has capacity to become lost in his reading. The door whooshes open and she almost punches him in the face because she’s mid-pound.

“Vala?” He grabs her hand and directs it back down. “What are you—”

“Do you remember when you conjured me up that ice cream?”

“What—Yeah, but what—” His eyes slide down her body and he yanks her into the room. “You should really go change before—”

“I don’t have clean clothes, Daniel, but that’s not important right now.” Tugs away from him and grasps onto his arm. “What date did you get me the ice cream.”

“Honey, I don’t know.” Turns away from her strolling through the holographic tomes until he stoops and grabs his coffee from the podium. She might strangle him. “Is it really that important?”

“Yes, Darling.” Scurries back to his side, removing the coffee from his hand. “Life and death.”

“Okay, well, it was before we were together, maybe a little before Sam thought she had that breakthrough and when Teal’c was going through his Brady Bunch phase.” Nods vigorously at each word, if she could reach down his throat and pull out the answer she would have done so already. “I’m going to say between a six and eight weeks ago.”

She’s very late.

 

 


	131. Day 131

Jolts awake beside him in bed, hand instinctively grasping underneath her pillow for a weapon, usually a small knife but sometimes a sidearm, that she keeps near for protection. The room is dark and flashing, and her memory trickles back, she works for the Tau’ri now, sleeps in an assigned dorm at the SGC in a mountain with no light and Dr. Lam was afraid she was getting seasonal depression from lack of direct sunlight.

But a hand covers her arm trying to calm her and only exacerbating her confusion. The room flashes in more blooming color before fading back to black. Back to nothingness. Blinks in the dark, in the absence of color, and draws her eyes towards the television where thousands of orange and yellow dots speckle across a black background.

The light from the television pours over the ground and up the bed, blanching his blue blanket. She’s on the damn ship still, and her tense muscles sigh away, letting her relax into the bed beside him. His hand slides up to her shoulder before he drops a kiss on the cold, exposed skin. “Sorry, I thought I turned it down all the way.”

“It’s fine.” Tugs his arm around her, scooting backwards until her back hits his chest. He stretches a leg, tracing hers with it, and hugging her to him. Any lingering anxiety begins to dissipate, and she no longer dwells on the fact that he makes her feel this way.

He nuzzles her hair away from her ear with his nose and she rolls her shoulders up to ward off the shudder. “You jumped.”

“I’m not a fan of those sky fires.”

“Fireworks.”

“They sound too much like weaponry.”

“Remind me to take you away for the 4th of July then.”

Spent two Independence Days on Earth alone, eventually imprisoned in her room because the sound is so similar to gunfire. That was also when they learned she slept with a nonissue weapon under her pillow and impounded it from her.

“We’re going to be stuck here for the 4th of July.”

 


	132. Day 132

Slips through the corridors, shoeless, sockless, light on the balls of her feet and past the lab, lights off and empty save for the little Asgardian man. Tiptoes by the book room where he’s probably been since the last time she saw him, asking him ridiculous questions about ice cream and when he came to her room that night for an explanation she told him she was busy and did the equivalent of slamming the door in his face. She’s seen even less of Cameron in the last days as she tried to piece together what could’ve happened and much to her chagrin, try and figure out who put this child in her.

At least this time there’s no supergates to blame.

Samantha is at the table, drinking from a mug of coffee in silence, and she slams into the seat across from her, pulling the woman’s stare away from the beam outside the window. “I want to help you.”  

Her friend grins and she practically pulls her back to her lab, setting her down and discussing time theories until her help runs dry.

Samantha furrows her eyebrows, “Do you need to talk about something Vala?”

“I need to ask you a rather large favor, but I’m afraid you’ll be upset.” Rallies another stool and sits across from her.

“Why would I be upset?”

“Because you might think it’s a betrayal of your trust.”

Samantha’s eyes grow large and she leans back from the conversation. “Well, what is it?” She hesitates, plucking at the material on her BDU pants because they were the only clean pair she had. “I can’t say yes or no if you don’t tell me.”

“I need to be able to conjure something up, something private.” Before Samantha can respond she wheels her hands in the air to continue. “I can’t tell you now, but it’s small, and it won’t take very much energy, and—”

“Vala, I trust you.” Sam touches her shoulder with a smile, dousing the feelings that asking this might make her friend doubt her. “I’ll show you how to do it.”

Has to make this quick because she doesn’t want anyone finding out about the stowaway on their ship until she knows, until she has a chance to deal with it.


	133. Day 133

“You okay?”

She wraps her hands around him, half around his fingers, the other around his thumb and lifts his arm to press against his side.

“Why?”

Has said barely a word through the last two movies, her mind traveling to precarious places and ruminating on what may be inside of her.

“You’re really quiet.”

Hauls his arm over her head, vices her in against his warm body as his fingers stroke over her legs. Hums at the sensation, the barely there tickle, the pricklies bumping up her skin, the hollow shudder in her stomach.

“Then you should enjoy it.”

Traces the pad of his thumb over her lower lip.

“I like it when you talk, Princess.”

She laps the tip of his thumb before wrapping her lips around it in a strong, wet kiss.

“I just think you like the other things my mouth does.”

He kisses her, wet thumb on the side of her face, and his tongue strong in her mouth. Flips her half beneath him, his knee rutting between her legs, pressing in against her when she rolls her hips forth.

“I think—”

Captures her lips again, very wet, and he traces his hand up her thigh and the pricklies, the bumps, tingle so much she aches.

“Yes?”

“I think—”

Trails kisses from the corner of her lips down her jawline, his hand digging beneath her shirt cupping a tender breast through her bra.

“Yes?”

Undulates her body against his, needing more of him touching her, pulling on his lips with hers, dragging a finger down the back of his neck, and spreading her hand between his bare shoulders as he yanks her panties to the side.

Inside her and against her.

Tugs on her earlobe with his lips while she rocks against his digits, her hand slipping beneath the top of his sweat pants, circling him, trying to keep the pace of her own body with his.

“I think I just like you.”


	134. Day 134

“That smells heavenly.”

The door to the kitchen squeals closed behind her as she pads in. It’s well after dinner, but not late enough to be tomorrow. The days are starting to blend together, and she knows she’s going to have to do something soon, figure out exactly what it is she can do.

Birth a baby or not.

Raise a child on a floating island in space and time, that’s not apt to lead to any mental illness now is it.

“Hey Baby,” he greets her like he knows her—well their, and almost all encompassing their—secret, but it’s one of his pet names for her, draws them up and whistles them out to her and she loves it, the tenderness behind the words, the way the words work, the endearing nature of them. She’s all those words and more to him and perhaps he genuinely does care for her.

He pulls a pan from the top of the stove, a few more littered over the counter on pot holders, aromatic steam drifting through the air making her mouth water. “What are you making?”

“I noticed you’ve been ducking out on some meals—” morning sickness in space knows no time, the irony of which, is not lost on her “—and I thought maybe you could just use a good Southern cooked meal.”

“I haven’t been skipping meals, I’ve just been snacking more.”

“You haven’t been snacking.” She hasn’t and has no idea how he’s privy to such information about her, but it’s the least of her concern as he plates up a generous sized portion from each pot and hands her the warm plate. Her expression must be wide-eyed and portray her eagerness to exit because he adds, “you can even go eat it in your bed, just eat something.”

Doesn’t answer, just vaults herself up on the counter, setting the plate in her lap and shovelling in a forkful of slimy green things. It tastes better than it smells, and her stomach growls loudly. He grins to himself, trying to hide that he is truly happy she is eating, as he fills the sink to her left with hot water and starts scouring the pots.

“Cameron.” His head pops up from concentrating on his hands beneath the soapy water, bulbous yellow gloves shrouding them. “Have you ever had hunger?”

“Yeah, Honey, I think everyone has.” It’s a nonchalant answer to what he presumes is a nonchalant question, and his head dips back down as he scrapes at the pan with what looks to be a ball of metal hair.

Takes a bite of fried meat, chicken perhaps, and delights in the perfect crunch, the texture difference between outer and inner, her mouth waters more and she inhales another piece. “No, I mean real hunger.”

“What’s the difference?”

“At anytime in the army were you left without rations, without food or water for a day, or two or more?”

“I mean sometimes we don’t have rations off-world, but it’s never been too to bad for me.”

The sound of his gloves re-entering the sink, the gurgle and babble of water pushing against the dishes with the friction of his hands fills the room.

She eats something pasta-like with cheese and the taste is intense and warm, her fork stabbing up all the little bits. Clears her throat and swallows, making sure not to talk with her mouth full. “The longest I went without eating is five days.”

His hands still.

“Three days was normal as a child, when my mother fell ill, my father left my mother remarried and had another family. We had a quaint little house, but she was unable to afford amenities in order to pay for it.” She sops up the plate with a large brick of bread soaking up all the flavors. “After the Tok’ra freed me of Qetesh they dropped me off at a large market but didn’t give me any currency. I wasn’t a great theft at the time, and it took five days for me to procure even a small amount of food.”

“Why didn’t they give you money?” Thinks he’s finished the last dish because he’s pulling off the comical gloves, but the sink sits half full still.

“Perhaps they knew how hard it would be for me only being recognizable as a system lord.” Crunches the last bit of bread and sets her empty plate to the side. “Besides, they’d already done me a large favor by ridding me of Qetesh and healing my ailing body.”

“Is that why you don’t eat often.” His hands cup her knees, stilling the legs she didn’t realize were moving. “To prove yourself?”

Perhaps it was, coupled with not knowing what to do with a child, and assuming starving herself would make the decision for her, however it didn’t work the last time after three days in the Ver Isca town square and it didn’t work this time either. “Perhaps.”

“Or?” He knows her reservations, a playful tone to his voice with just a squish of the Southern charm she’s getting used to.

His hand wiggles between her knees and when her legs open he drifts into the center, her thighs resting against his hips and her forehead filling the dip of his nose. “Or maybe I do it to make sure I still can if the situation calls for it.”

“We have a matter converter now, Princess.”

“Hmm.” Her hand snakes up the back of his neck. “I also have my very own live in chef.”

“Mmm.” His lips bubble against her skin and she laughs, flinching her shoulder up as a reaction. “If it gets you to eat, Baby, I’ll cook whatever you want.”


	135. Day 135

“Daniel?”

Has never woken him from a deep sleep before, has never dealt with the rage that it is to wake him, or what she assumes will be rage directed at her. Even when he snores, when he’s overtired and babbling words in Ancient and Asgardian she doesn’t even think of waking him up and soon all his rhymes and directions in dead languages flow through her ears with her Goa’uld threats and demands,.

There must not be any other raven-haired maidens in the village.

                    The silk must be smoother.                                    

Whose child dares cry during her speech? Bring it here.

But she cannot sleep because of the memories. The deaths stained on her hands, the blood in the fine lines of her fingers and dried up underneath her nails. The stretch marks across her stomach that faded to a pale touch of white from when she birthed the greatest threat to humanity thus far.

Presses the heel of her hand into his shoulder and jostles him until his heavy breathing lightens and his eyes begin to flutter. “Daniel?

“What—what is it?” Slaps blindly behind him for his glasses on the edge of the table, and then smacks them onto his face. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

Feels guilty because she didn’t need to wake him, but if she was with Cameron, she would’ve punted him in the ribs and then explained her situation while he regaled her with a tale of high school hijinks or drawled out a song in his state of half consciousness. “I can’t sleep.”

“You can’t sleep?”  Repeats almost incredulously, his eyes narrowing from irritation or fatigue.

“Sometimes—” It’s a delicate subject and if he rebuffs her she’ll never be able to burden him with her trust again, so to save the heartache she has to proof her words. Always handpicked ripened words with him. “Sometimes I hear things and it disrupts my sleep pattern.”

“Oh.” He seemingly understands without that much recriminations for placing him in her exact situation. With his thumb he jabs the glasses back up on his face. “Can I do anything?”

“I can fall asleep if there’s noise.” Points to his television that is more like a piece of claude glass in it’s ill use. “I was going to ask if I could turn your television on, but something tells me that you have no films for it.”

“Pretty much.” Stretches his arm across and tugs the chain on his bedside lamp, the light is soft but still stings. “What I do have is a lot of books.”

“Darling, don’t take this the wrong way, but I think if you read to me in Ancient or Asgardian, I won’t be able to filter it from the background noise.”

“I have other books, you know.” Presents a dog-eared paperback novel with dirty brown and gray pages. “They’re not the happiest poems, but they’re entertaining.”

“Good enough.” Curls against his chest in the orange glow of the lamp and hears his voice before it escapes from his body, the way his inhalations work through his chest and throat to create the words as he speaks in clear, gentle sentences.

And she drifts off.


	136. Day 136

She hasn’t taken a test yet.

It’s sitting on her dresser; a tiny two pack of pee sticks and she’s never been more afraid in her life. This is not an ideal situation for a baby. It makes her dizzy and nauseous and exhausted and fairly certain that she requires no test.

Contemplating between taking a nap and taking the test, she flits around the room straightening items and choosing instead to fold the laundry she did during the night. As she picks up the first shirt, her door drifts open, Cameron standing in the hallway. She often forgets that one of the perks of being a team leader means he has the code to all their dorms.

“Sorry,” laughs out to her, as he enters closing the door behind him. “I would’ve knocked, but I thought you’d be with Jackson in the Asgard knowledge room.”

“Oh no.” Darts her eyes to the pregnancy tests so open and obvious on her dresser a few feet from where he stands. Folds her shirt quickly and tries to devise a plan. Throw pretty underthings at him as a distraction or just cover it with a mound of clothing adding it back to the basket. “I’m on my own today.”

“Then where have you been keeping yourse—”

She forgot how fast he is, how observant he is because he notices when she changes things, does her makeup differently, her hair without rollers, when she’s in a phase of no shoes or socks. He grabs the test box off her dresser, easily distinguishable to a former air force pilot with a keen attention for detail.

“Please tell me this is for a friend—” He drops it back on the dresser spinning his back towards her and heaving in a breath. “No, don’t tell me that, because that would mean Sam—”

“I haven’t taken one yet.” Drops her shirt, now beyond wrinkled, back into the basket and sits at the end of her bed.

“But you were going to.” Can’t tell whether he’s angry, or irritated, or panicking, he uses the same voice for each one.

“Once I worked myself up to it, yes.”

“And I’m guessing because of this agreement you made with me and Jackson—” A quaint quick chat placing a few ground rules on the table for the sake of everyone’s sanity. No alpha maling, no cutting into the other’s time, no complaining. It worked well, a little too well apparently.

“I don’t know who the father is.” Lets her head hang a bit, hears the voices of the villagers after they conquered her, conquered Qetesh, calling her a whore, calling her dirty, barrelling stones at her.

“Jesus, Vala—I—” Stops pacing before her, and tilts the back of her head forward, placing a kiss on her crown. “What do you need me to do?”

Angles her head to look up at him, her eyes squinting in misunderstanding. “What?”

He crouches before her, so she doesn’t have to strain her neck, and his hands find their way back to her knees. His voice is even and calm and his face void of any emotion really. “What do you need me to do? Do you want me to stay with you while you take the test, or just leave you alone and pretend that I never found it?”

And she starts crying.

The monikers the villagers stapled to her have always weighed her down within and sitting in the middle of a square in Ver Isca for being unfaithful made her more detached. But he wraps his arms around her, guiding her to him, and lets her cry in safety and without judgement.

 


	137. Day 137

“Everything go okay?” He’s sitting on the end of her bed, the purple comforter piling beneath his legs as he waits for her. Decided against taking the test yesterday since he pointed out all they have is time, another day of not knowing wouldn’t hurt. Instead watched some movie about an army court marshal where the characters shouted a lot.

“Yes, I managed to pee on the stick without much difficulty.”

“Did you bring the stick?”

She flashes it at him and sets it on her dresser, while he sets a timer on his phone, which is good for little else now, then she flops down beside him on the bed. “What should we do while we wait?”

“Wanna fool around?” Arches and eyebrow at him and he shrugs. “Not really counterproductive at this point.”

Doesn’t answer him because he’s trying to lighten the mood and it’s hard for him to do, strict and stern military man that he is. Her head pillows against his shoulder and he claps a hand over her thigh.

“Tell me something about your childhood.”

“You know all about my childhood, Princess.” Feels the movements of his jaw against her temple, his fingers drawing little circles, little stargates, against her leg. “You saw it live in action when we went to Kansas.”

“Tell me about a time when you were frightened.”

“How about ever damn day on this job.”

“When you were a child, Cameron.”

He groans, but she knows he’s going to relent, because he can hear it in her voice, how she needs the distraction. “Alright, aright.” He leans into her a bit and his voice gains a quality, perhaps nostalgia, he sounds far away. “Once I was out in the barn when a tornado hit.”

“How old were you?”

“Ten or eleven, I wanted to check on the animals even though my dad told me they were fine.”

Grins against his shoulder, imagines him as a child, talking the animals down, calming the goats and horses. “What happened?”

“He had to come out and get me. The winds were really strong—I never regretted it though.”

“I’m sure your father felt differently.”

“Oh, he whooped my ass.” They chuckle and he turns his phone forward, a little less than a minute ticking downwards. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Your scariest childhood memory.” The way he says it, the hesitation furthering with each word tells her he knows it’s a bad idea, but she’s shared some things with him, things she told no one, things she’s barely capable of admitting to herself.

“When Fierenze came to collect me.”

Angles his head towards her, probably surprised she answered him. “Who?”

“The weapons smuggler my father sold me to.” Blinks at him, at the shock forming on his face, his eyes growing wide and then narrowing to detect if she’s lying or not. “My mother died, and I became a ward of my father and Adria, who were not interested in raising an unruly child, and as you could wager, I was quite unruly.”

“The unruliest.”

“But the moment he came to collect me, I knew my childhood was over.” Pulls back from him staring at her unfolded laundry, she still knows the halls of her childhood home, the sound of a light wind blowing through reed chimes hanging over the back door, the smell of several flowers in bloom, but not her mother’s voice. “Actually, it probably ended when she died.”

Tilts her head back towards him, his eyebrows sinking. “How old were you when he took you?”

“I was twelve.” Can foresee where his line of questioning is going, knows what he’ll ask and knows she’ll never answer it in truth.

“Vala, did—”

His phone vibrates to life, the screen lighting up and an alarm alerting that two minutes has passed at perfect timing. She taps his knee, and drifts from the bed, knowing that the question still hangs in his mouth, but the opportunity has concluded.

The test is in her hand again, and it has two blue lines.

Two blue lines.

Shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The movie they were watching is 'A Few Good Men'.


	138. Day 138

“Do you want me to stay with you when you tell him?”

“I think it’s for the best that you didn’t.”

“But what if he snaps or something?”

“It’s Daniel, there’s more snap in a twig.”

He’s holding her hand and bows to press a kiss to her cheek. They’re standing by the kitchen table, basking in the backdrop of the beam.

He makes her feel like those country boys did.

“You know it’s you right?” Speaks it into his chest, she can’t bare to look him in the eyes because she’s the one who got them into this situation, sure it took one of them to make it happen, but there should have only been one of them.

“Yeah, I do,” mumbles it into her forehead.

“You also know why I can’t leave him.”

“Yeah, I do.”

Disengages from him, her skin cools, her body empty except for one thing. His arm stretches, tethers her to him until she breaks their locked hands and drifts down the hall to collect Daniel from the book room.

He’s in the middle of all the tomes, the magnificent blue writing swirling and making her just a tad nauseous. Doesn’t drag his eyes from the text as she enters but wraps an arm around her waist. He reaches a hand up and for a second she thinks it’s to  grab on to hers, but he looks down and chuckles. “Sorry, I thought you brought me a coffee.”

“Daniel, there’s something—”

“Can it wait until tomorrow?” Pecks her on the cheek and taps her hip twice to send her on her way. “I’m at an integral division in the Asgardians use of energy.”

She wants to take his face between her hands and headbutt him like she did when they first met, but instead she smooths the shoulders of his sweater out, a knitted librarian looking thing that she secretly wants to steal, and presses a kiss to his cheek, while secretly stashing the positive test to the side on the podium.

“Of course, Darling.”

 


	139. Day 139

All the clothes in the basket are wrinkled and she has to decide if it means anything.

Will she be upset to wear wrinkled clothing? Will anyone care if she wears wrinkled clothing?

She decides wrinkled clothes, among many other things, do not matter.

Sitting on the end of the bed has been overdone, so she slides pass the bump of the mattress and lets her back rest against the foot. She folds the blue shirt she wore on her not date with Daniel in another lifetime, when she was nervous but very attracted to the idea of sex with him, before she had sex with him, before all this.

Finishes folding the shirts, laying the pile to the side, and starting in on her pajama pants. Her favorite pair, made out of a gray shimmery material, is starting to get holes all along the inseam, and she’ll need to find if anyone has a needle and thread.

Is it even worth it?

Do the pants mean that much to her that she would salvage them by wasting her time? Does her time mean so little to her to hem up a pair of well-loved pants when all she has is time? She sets them to the side and places her head in her hand.

“I am not going to cry,” it’s spoken with assurance and aloud to someone who probably has no ears yet. When she stares at her stomach expecting some sort of rebuttal, she finds it only raises and falls with little anticipation.

Knowing they’re alone she questions, “Why are you even in there?”

Then she’s racked with guilt because this little peanut didn’t ask to exist, and it asked to exist on this bloody ship even less. It simply is just within her and as much as she wants it not to exist, it does, and she needs to deal with the permanence of it, because she’s fairly certain in some months it will be permanent.

Her door flies open and she expects it’s Cameron coming to check on her in the aftermath of telling Daniel he may or may not be a father all at once, and she’ll explain she left the clues, and he’ll say her name in that gravelly whisper, and she’ll arch and eyebrow at him, and then if she’s lucky, literally, they’ll have sex.

Only it’s not Cameron, it’s Daniel and he’s as red-faced and on the rampage as she’s ever seen him.

“You just left this for me to find?” He bellows at her, she doesn’t hear the doors whoosh closed behind him because his footfalls are leaden.

“You said you were busy, Darling.” Yanks out the next pair of pajama pants and flicks them in the air to try and clear them of wrinkles, then again, who is she trying to impress?

“I think you would know _this_ is the kind of thing I can be interrupted for.” He whips the test at her, probably meaning for it to land at her feet, but instead it thwacks into her chest. She doesn’t react, merely grabs the test from the ground and twists behind her to toss it into her trash. “So, catch me up.”

“What do you mean?” Folds the next pair of pants, no flicking, no hand ironing, just in half and in half again. Good enough.

“Well I’m sure you and Mitchell have already discussed the grand horizons of being parents.” His legs drill into the ground as he passes before he, he forgot his glasses in the book room, probably on the edge of the podium, probably grabbed the positive test instead of them, and she forces herself not to chuckle at him.

Sighs and grabs the last pair of pants. “You’re being unbelievably naughty right now.”

“Why? Because I’m bitching about how much time you and Mitchell spend together?” He’s so red she’s concerned he might actually pop an artery or have a heart attack. Knows they’re fairly common in Tau’ri men. “Because I’m making a play here? Remember  you were interested in me first.”

“And things change, Daniel.” Plucks up a camisole, folding it, then another, then another, still too nervous to translate the expression of pain on his face. “Despite being stuck on a timeless ship, things change.”

“Well forgive me, but this isn’t exactly how I wanted to become a parent for the first time.”

Rests a pajama shirt against her legs, flipping it inside out, then right-side in again. “Meaning this is exactly what I intended?”

“I mean, it must seem completely normal compared to your last pregnancy.” The hate, the malice in his voice, in his words, is so pure that it stops her actions. “At least you don’t have to marry me to hide your shame this time.”

“You need to leave.”

“No, Vala, we need to talk about that test. This kid—do you have any idea whose it is? Or did you just stop keeping tally after awhile?” His irate face added to a circle of villagers watching her burn, spit spewing from his mouth as he screams horrible, hurtful things at her. Chucks rocks and stones, breaks her skin, her will, barely alive and beaten badly. “It must have be pretty complex math at this point.”

Her father pushing her forward to a Fierenze, a fat man with clubbed, grubby fingers and bright red hair. People with red hair still scare her, push her back and make her chuckle nervously because of what he did to her, because of what her father let happen. Her mother apologizing to her in half aware breathes as the sickness reaped through her system, destroying every and any part of her. Warning her of her life to come, and to keep a positive attitude.

She must keep a good attitude.

She starts sobbing because the mental intrusions, the voices she’s hearing and not hearing, it’s all becoming too much and how good of a mother is she going to be if she’s mentally unbalanced. How will she tell her child’s cry from that of the hundreds of infants she killed with her bare hands, can still feel the pop of tiny bones between her fingers, the choking as crying stopped. She rakes with tears and buries her face in her hands, no longer hearing Daniel’s diatribe, not sure if he’s left or rolling his eyes at her because she’s so dramatic.

But the laundry basket pulls from her side and he touches her shoulder cautiously, she shrugs him off, but he pulls her into him sideways. He does and says nothing while she cries, and she cries, and she cries for a long time.

 


	140. Day 140

“When are you going to tell Sam?” He reclines in his bed, they moved from hers to his after her sobbing stopped. They didn’t speak of the baby much, or at all really, which is unusual because he’s so chatty, but he pulled out a book, the novel he was reading before while waiting at her door, and spoke some script to her stomach. Laid horizontally over the bed clad only in his sweatpants and recited poems. She’s not a linguist, at least in a scholarly way, and most of the words he said, despite being English went way over her head, but she did understand the cadence of his voice, the kindness behind his words.

Those tricky little words.

She fastens her bra behind her back. It’s starting to get a little tighter than she’d like, a little fuller. “I’ll tell her when I need supplies.”

“You already need supplies,” he groans tossing an angled arm over his face. It’s still relatively early in the morning, but General Landry is cooking and if they don’t get there a tad early he’s liable to go back for seconds.

“The bra can wait until I need pants.” Pulls on her blue t-shirt from Sol’s that she uses as a sleeping shirt now.

“Not the bra.” Yanks on his pants apparently resigned to going with her. “Prenatal vitamins. Sam is also the one who runs most of the medical lab now, you could ask her to do a blood test, see if any of the Asgard’s have any advanced tests that might be of use.”

“I thought those little fellows had trouble with breeding.” Runs a brush through her hair and it catches at a particularly bad knot. Brushes over it again, and again, until she twirls her finger around it and tugs it out.

Cleans his glasses on his shirt, huffing hot air unto the lenses and wiping them clean. “They did.”

“Then why would they have any tests pertinent to our baby.”

He stops as he reaches for a clean black shirt, they’re practically all he owns except for that grandpa librarian sweater she still has intentions of stealing. “It—uh—they were doing—umm—experimentations when they died.”

She narrows her eyes at him, rolling the hem of her shirt down over her hips because it still won’t rest in place. “So, you’d like to experiment on our baby?”

“What? No.” He moves forward and stretches out the hem to the side, allowing it to flow easier over her hips, his eyes down, his face purposefully avoiding hers. “I just want to know.”

“Know what?” She buzzes around his face, always searching for a good way to pester, to keep things original in days upon days upon days of unmoving.

He sighs and grabs her chin, holding her still. “To know if it’s mine, Vala.”

“Well then it’s simple, it’s not.” Turns her back, her hair flipping through the air, and is out his door with him hot on her trail.

“Vala, this is cruel.”

“No, it’s not. Cameron agreed that he didn’t want to find out, that this child would be a shared responsibility.”

“That’s not how parents work. That’s not how average, functioning parents work.”

“Then perhaps you weren’t meant to be a parent.” Catches up to her at the alcove, the one she so desperately wants to duck into to just be solitary, just be with herself, the somewhat unwanted fetus, and the voices in her head.

“It’s a simple test, it’s non-invasive, it takes less than a minute.” He cuts her off and if they were back at Cheyenne Mountain it would be a direct opposition of actions, a flip in power, his words desperately trying to seek her ears, convince her. “Honey, I don’t think I can spend my whole life not knowing. I just need to so—”

“So you can be less involved if it’s Cameron’s? So you can lord over him the fact that it’s yours if it is? As much as this child is cursed for eventually being born on this vessel, it’s blessing comes in family. A kind old General to teach them agriculture and board games, a burly Jaffa to teach patience and self-defence, an astrophysicist who can fix any problem—”

“Almost any problem”

“—a mother who needs time to adjust, but let’s be honest, will adore them to bits, and two fathers. Two brilliant fathers. One learned and the other strategic. This child will own the galaxy.”

 


	141. Day 141

Sam knows.

Told her yesterday after the brief verbal joust with Daniel in the hallway. If the conversation hadn’t alerted Sam to the deed, then her bursting through her laboratory door requesting prenatal vitamins certainly did.

They went briefly, in secrecy, to the medical lab where Sam preformed some primitive goopy scan that showed a tiny fish in a big pond. An oblong blue blob sitting in a dish of black and Sam grinned and tried to blink away her tears as she pointed it out to her, and if she squinted, she could see it.

“Are you sure you don’t want to know who the father is?”

They’ve never been explicit about her torrid romances, or even discussed the agreement she has with two gentlemen, but sometimes it’s easier to comprehend the unspoken.

“I haven’t a care in the world.”

Now she has a picture of the blobby thing, her baby with a bulbous head and body stuck in her like she’s stuck in the ship and she doesn’t want to pity it, but she does.


	142. Day 142

Her body weight turns off the water as she almost hangs against the shower tree. Slaps at the lever until a rocket of ice-cold water blasts against her back and shoulders. Suds still dirtying the streams running off her body.

Her exhaustion is sentient.

Something is sentient and sapping her energy, and she just stays in the cold water until she cannot take it anymore, until it reminds her too much of the torture she endured after the fall of Qetesh.

Doesn’t bother completely toweling off and instead just pulls back on the pair of his borrowed boxers and his navy-blue with that gold banner top. Her hair slobbers down her back as she drags herself through the hallway, around the corner and back into his room, collapsing face down on his bed.

“Rough night?”

“I’ve never been so tired.”

“Next time just ask me to go with you.” The bed bucks with the absence of his weight, and then his hand clears her sopping hair from her back. “You’re freezing.”

“I had to stay awake somehow.”

There’s strain as he uses his towel to finish wringing out her hair. Pulls against her shoulder getting her to sit against him on the edge of the bed. She slips into slumber and her back thwacks his chest more than once.

But he plucks and preens completing a single braid through her hair.


	143. Day 143

Day 143

He appears better settled but she’s not entirely sure it’s not an act to keep her present and satisfied.

Lays across his bed sideways, flipping through one of the magazines he brought her what seems like a year ago, but half a year has hardly passed.

A year.

Then two.

How is she supposed to remain a calm mother to a child who will know nothing but metal bulkheads and regenerated oxygen?

His chin rests on her hip because he’s reading to the baby. Reading from that book of dreary poetry that invokes more horrible images in her head than her own memories do.

How can she feel so full and so empty at the same time?

So excited and so terrified.

“You okay?” Puppy eyes scroll up to meet hers, peaking over the rims of his glasses.

“Yes, Darling.” Rakes a hand through the back of his hair, feels the weight of his head increase against her hip, his fingers curling around her thigh. “Just lost in thought.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“About what?”

“Whatever’s got you lost?”

“Just changes.”

How things change but they always stay the same.

Is a new life aboard a vessel unmoored in time really a new life at all as no one else will ever know it?

“Okay.” Sounds like he still needs convincing, his voice holding onto and stretching the word out with doubt. His hand cups her cheek and she turns back from staring at the beam through the sliver of window unclothed by curtains. “But we can talk if you want to.”

She won’t. “I know.”

Attention turns back to the life in question, the one who wakes her in the middle of the night with the need to vomit and then persuades her to eat four bagels before she’s found out like a rodent raiding the pantry.

“I was neither living nor dead, and I knew nothing.”

It makes her giddy to think about tiny little feet with tinier little toenails kicking through the air. Of downy hair smoothing out underneath her hand.

Of the weight inside of her out.

“Looking into the heart of light, the silence.”

It makes her nauseous to think of the sacrifice of her body, yet again, for another being. Carried Qetesh around much in the same manner but had less control over how many bagels she could eat. Bifurcated on the ship between two men who use her, perhaps need her, in different ways, but her body is always the common trait.

“Oed’ und leer das Mer.”

Blinks back to his voice, the tilted and harsh blurting of consonants in another language, noticeable among the others. “That wasn’t English.”

“No. German.”

“What does it mean.”

“Well it’s from an opera by Wagner, loosely translated from it’s original context—”

“Daniel.”

“It translates to ‘empty and desolate is the sea’.”

So full of life, quite literally, and yet so yearning for release.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem Daniel is reading is "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot. The Quote is from Book I: The Burial of the Dead.


	144. Day 144

Her plant is dead.

Died in the window, from lack of light or water or too much watering. How was she expected to keep it alive with no light? The leaves are brown and crumble dryly against her touch. She should toss the whole thing, but then the pot, the one someone took their time in designing would be lost as well. Could she go back to General Landry and appeal for another cup of plant?

Perhaps he would be sympathetic to her lack of synthetic sunlight.


	145. Day 145

Has never been to the incinerator before, but follows his trail, the echoing ripples of his footsteps, heavy with the weight of six people’s garbage over the course of ten days. Goes through phases, goes through fazes as well. Allows herself to be happy, relieved in tiny snapshots curled away into corners of rooms, enjoyed only by her and a balloon animal the size of an almond. Then dips her toes into depression, the inability to move freely through ventilation shafts, the inability to crawl further than the metal walls surrounding her pulsating inwards to the quick beat of something else’s, someone else’s, heart.

She’s making a heart.

He tosses the last bag into the flames and they lick upwards, lapping at the ceiling and she knows how he got burned. Indolently in a daydream chasing the same screaming toddler she does.

The same son.

“Honey.” Catches her from the corner of his eye, wised up to never taking his sight from a dancing flame, something she learned twice over. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

Talking about the flames, the danger, the gases spurted out after burning several tons of waste. But something told her to seek him out, to tail him down into the lower depths where she once spent the night shipwrecked on a closet. “I know I just—” Wants to tell him the truth. Fights to tell him the truth wading through the voices in search of it.

Tell him the truth.

“I was lonely.”

His grin is accepting as his arm squeezes around her waist. “Well, I was going to go for a run, but I could always change it up for movies and popcorn.” Sighs into his chest when he hugs her, not pointing out the faults in her honesty, not lording her weakness against her. “I mean, unless you want to go running with me.”

“Not with this body.”

Her body is not her own anymore. Her curves grow more curvaceous, her stomach tightens, but all the changes thus far are internal.

“You look beautiful.” Sways her a bit on her feet, dancing near a romantic fire that smells like burning plastic.

“I feel conflicted.”

“About?”

“Celebration or regret.”

Nods, fully dancing with her now, hands on her hips, her melting hips. “Can I make a suggestion?”

“Go ahead.”

“Be happy until you can’t be.”

Simple words with a simple answer.

Celebrate while there’s something worth celebrating and it’s so simple she overlooked it through the voices, through babies howling and mothers screaming, cursing her as she’s lead through the streets by manacles. But his scent grounds her, her nose against the side of his neck nuzzling while his thumb strums across her navel.

“You know, I could go for a run?”

“Yeah?”

“But I’d rather roller skate.”

“Princess, if you wear those death traps anytime before the baby is born, I’m hucking them right into the flames.”


	146. Day 146

“I miss the rain.”

Sometimes she says things like this aloud. Sometimes she’s by her lonesome, and sometimes she’s with someone else and it doesn’t stop her. A pure, uncensored thought from the din in her mind out her mouth in a solid word spoken to a fetus who doesn’t understand English and will never know rain.

Depending on who she’s with the reactions have a wide range. General Landry might give her a warm smile and Muscles an _indeed_. Sam might tell her about the bad things that came with rain, puddles, wet shoes, rubber gummy thingies on the ground, blackouts, floods. Cameron would be too nervous to ask her to elaborate but might offer an agreement. Daniel would tell her, without creaking up from his book, to just go into the shower and when she adds that it wasn’t spontaneous like rain, he’ll offer to push her into the shower in the name of spontaneity.

However, this time she announces her weather nostalgia at the kitchen table during a particularly awkward, quiet dinner. Cameron and Sam are in a bit of a tiff about actually getting off the Odyssey, they may be the only ones still confident that it will actually happen, this also means that Cameron is in a tiff with Muscles, which means no workout time, and since she’s been with Daniel today,  no stress relief.

Everyone glances up from their soup or stew or whatever Cameron threw together until Sam can be bothered to order more supplies and just sort of stares at her. If she had any modicum of shame left she might have blushed, but she can’t even muster a smile. If a little more of her old persona still lived on, she’d add that she only got to experience the rain four times in total because they corralled her like a damn animal on that base.

Slowly, they all dip back into their bowls and the only sound of metal against plastic fills the room.

Her spoon is still clean on the napkin.


	147. Day 147

“This isn’t turning out at all the way I expected.”

“Perhaps another color would be more suitable.”

Muscles sits beside her at the kitchen table for arts and crafts time. Landry needs more pots and everyone else came up with a suitable excuse before she could rattle out that she needed to dispose of that week’s garbage in the incinerator. Landry waved it off, telling her she could do it once they were done painting up some pots for him because apparently, despite how busy the others are, they are the ones falling behind in pot coloration.

“I’m not good at this.”

“Nor am I.”

Her pot is bright blue, and the paint is all over her hands, her face and in her hair. She doesn’t care, she just wants to finish painting this bloody pot so she can get back to whatever she does when she’s not doing this. It has to be better.

“I’m not very good at creative things.” The pot topples on the table and she sighs getting new blue fingerprints on her forehead. “I mean, I’m great at spinning a tale, and telling lies. I’m fantastic at it, they should give me an award.”

“Indeed.”

“But doing this.” She gestures to the pots which she has started mass producing, and the repetition, the lack of freedom, although under the guise of a soft smiling General, reminds her of Fierenze, of clacking guns together until she formed blisters, until her fingers bled. “It infuriates me.”

Teal’c doesn’t answer her and might actually be ignoring her a little more than usual which is a bit disheartening, but on a ship this small, and it is small despite what anyone wants to say about it, there’s drama and somehow, she’s swept into Cameron’s blowout.

She daps her brush quickly at the pot trying to create cloud formations, but the paint isn’t dry yet, so it turns out smudged and looking slightly like laundry detergent. “Do you think if I paint a pot on this ship every day for the rest of my life, the final one will be better than the first?”

He draws a semicircle in yellow. His pots are abstract an all yellow, greens, and reds that remind her of bodily fluids. The colors give her an upset stomach.

Without looking up he answers.

“No.”


	148. Day 148

“Someone had a big day out yesterday.” His voice rouses her from her sleep.

She’s lays sideways across her bed still on top of the comforter and vaguely remembers pissing away the day painting the ugliest pots she possibly could for General Landry. She tried in the beginning, honestly tried, but by the end she was using her fingers and making hand turkeys.

Hangs her head back over the bed because she might vomit, the child has been very unnecessary in its wrath upon her waking. “If that man ever asks me to paint another pot I will blow up this ship.”

He sits on the bed next to her and when she makes no attempt to sit up, he lays on his side beside her. “It’s a strategy he uses to help relax us. He thinks we don’t notice it, but it’s pretty obvious.”

“It’s not relaxing.”

“Your face is still loaded with paint.” He stifles a laugh behind a huge grin.

When she looks down to her hands they’re covered not only in blue paint, but pretty much every color she had available to her. She groans because she was so tired afterwards, she retreated back to her room and fell asleep as she hit the bed.

“You do know you look adorable, right?” He taps the tip of her nose and she tries to bite at his finger and he’s full out laughing now. Something she hasn’t heard from him in perhaps all their months on this ship.

Then she remembers she hasn’t had the time to share the picture.

“I have something to show you.”

He’s a little surprised by how swiftly she raises, and he finds a seat at the edge of her bed as she rifles through her bedside table drawer searching for it. “Not going to wait until after you shower? Your face looks like a Jackson Pollock painting.”

“Yes, yes, I have paint on my face, in my hair, on my neck, and hands and arms, and down my shirt.”

“Down your shirt—”

“Here.” The picture is her bookmark in one of those horrible Tau’ri birthing books that tells her everything to expect when pregnant like she hasn’t done this umpteenth times before. She turns to him holding out the picture.

He cocks his head at first, but then his confused, squished face melts and he snatches the picture from her. “When did you get this?”

“About a week ago, Sam did the scan.”

“And?”

She flicks and eyebrow at him, but he misses it, still absorbing the photo, the pads of his fingers drifting over the glossy paper. “And I didn’t do the DNA test. So, I don’t know—”

Head darts up from the photo. His face falls serious as he clarifies, “no. Is it healthy?”

“It’s healthy.”

“It’s perfect.” His arm curls around her waist guiding her back to the bed and directs her on top of him. Her paint chunked hair dangles around his face as he kisses her in a way that still makes her stomach flutter. His hands crawl underneath the hem of her shirt and tickle up her stomach pushing the material over her head. “Now let’s see what you managed to paint on your chest.”


	149. Day 149

She gravely underestimated how much garbage six people can produce in a week. Garbage is Cameron or Muscle’s usual duty, but since their little fall out, they’ve been shuffled to other tasks since Sam refuses to work with Cameron until he apologizes and every time she tries to talk to him about it he uses his tongue, but not for talking.

Somehow they’ve skipped over Daniel, the next burliest of the Odyssey’s citizens, and crash landed on her. She’s counted the bags, there are fourteen. Fourteen large back bags that she has to haul down six levels to the bottom of the ship where the incinerator is located.

Two at a time, seven trips. It’s a lot but it’s not going to be any less if she doesn’t start, so she grabs two of the black tied off tops expecting the food waste and odd paper towel to amount to being near weightless, but that is not true.

That is the furthest thing from the truth.

The bags are filled with concrete, or boulders, or corpses.

Drops one and two hands the other, managing to skim the edges of the waste depository door and collapse into the hallway just as Muscles strolls by. They’re conversations have been tense still and she doesn’t understand. She and Sam are able to put aside the disagreement that she isn’t a part of and still enjoy each other’s company.

Men.

“Vala Mal Doran why are you resting on that large bag of waste?” He stops beside her, looming over her, judging her, with his hands clasped behind his back.

“I’m on garbage duty this week.” She pops up beside him and dusts off her pants.

He cranes his head slightly to the side, viewing the inside of the room “There are many other bags gathered within the waste depository.”

“Yes.”

“Why are you not taking them?”

“I will, but I can only bear to carry this one for the moment.”

When she reaches down to grab the tied off top again, his hand flies down to intercept. “I will do this.”

Believes he doesn’t understand about the way she inherited the garbage this week. “No, duties got shuffled around and—”

“Vala Mal Doran, I have—” he pauses, and he seems to be picking his words very carefully “—Samantha and I—”

“Yes?” Half expects him to blow their secret, the one she already knows, but any relationship news other than hers is always interesting.

“You should not be exerting yourself.”  Reaching into the room he returns with all of the bags hanging from his bunched fists. When he registers the shock on her face he adds, “Samantha told me.”

“Oh, she told you?” She nods and crosses her arms, her shirts are becoming tighter, and she’s in need of that new bra. Might actually get it with using this betrayal. “How decent of her to tell you my personal—”

“Please do not be upset with her, Vala Mal Doran.” He exchanges all the bags so they all rest in one hand and at this point he might actually be showing off. “She enjoys you very much.”

“What?”

“She has stated on more than one occasion that speaking with you has kept her in good mind.”

“Oh.”

He nods and moves down the hall, all garbage bags in tow as she tries to discern if she should be furious at Sam or go and hug her because they both might need it. Before she’s out of reach he retreats a few steps and places a hard hand on her head holding her still as he pecks her hair. “Congratulations.”


	150. Day 150

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 5 Month Anniversary.   
> It's been a long time, you've grown as a person and I'm proud of you!
> 
> There are only 51 days left in this story, I hope you enjoy them.

“Do you remember when we first started doing this?” She folds her shorts in thirds and then in half, setting them on the end of her bed next to her other folded laundry.

He flips an inside-out shirt the right way, folding it pristinely, and setting it in his single, uniform stack. “Doing laundry together, like two weeks ago?”

“No, do you remember the first time we slept together?” She inserts the cup of her bra into the other, not bothering to straighten the straps, just tucking everything together.

“Oh yeah.” Doesn’t look up from folding, but there’s a coy grin spread across his face. “It was after that stupid pants mission right?”

“The pants mission?” She laughs.

“You know the one, the firefly one.”

Now she grins.

They waited for rescue, lost and separated from the rest of the team because she was too weak to crawl over the mound of rocks he broke through to get to her.

Him and his C4.

She reclined against a tree and the sunset, the first sunset she saw after being on the planet for two days as a captive. It was beautiful, pinks and purples and oranges. Just as the sun kissed the horizon a hundred fireflies lit up around them.

Cameron stopped his pacing but held his side arm ready.

“They’re beautiful,” she marvelled, the tiny glowing lights drifting around her face.

“Yeah this place is a miracle.”

She barely heard him as her head tilted back against the tree, the jail where she’d lived, shackled, blurred from her vision and she embraced the darkness behind her eyelids.

“Hey.” His hand touched the top of her head, smoothed away a clump of hair. He turned his attention away from the jail in the distance for a moment, his eyes bobbing into level with hers. “You can’t sleep now, Princess.”

“But Cameron, I’m so tired.” Her cheek sunk against his palm, and her eyes plugged closed again.

“I know, I know.” He straightened her by the shoulders, his head darting back to the jail at the reverberation of an explosion. “I promise, just stay awake a little while longer, and I’ll buy you whatever takeout you want when we get home.”

“Even—”

“Even the barbeque place.”

“With—”

“With banana pudding too.”

It was enough to entice her even after gobbling down his MRE that sat like a rock in her stomach. She stayed awake and alert, snuggled up in his jacket, and they were rescued a few hours later.

Dr. Lam found her and Sam both malnourished and dehydrated, but it was to be expected after what they went through with the guards. She was cleared to return to her room, but on medical leave for the next three days to recover.

Sam got leave off the base for this time, and it’s rumored that a certain General picked her up.

Cameron was true to his word as a leader, at least she thought that’s what it was. He was a lead by example type and because his actions were honest with her, he expected no lies and no games in return. They sat on opposite ends of her bed, eating ribs which was tricky, and watching ultimate fighting which they both enjoyed.

He told her the scores and didn’t dumb down his explanation of rules which she appreciated.

Then, somehow between cheering together and licking barbeque sauce off her fingers, he kissed her. He tasted like barbeque sauce, they ordered the same thing, and beer, which he had smuggled in, and when she didn’t deepen the kiss, he did. It was very out of character for what she knew of him, mainly the professional, straight-laced Colonel.

She pulled away, his nose tickling hers. “Cameron, why—”

“I’m just glad you’re okay.” Kissed her again, his hands piling on her cheeks. “Trying to find you was—it—I’ve wanted to do this and held back because—but something like this can happen anytime.” He leaned forward, stitching a cut in her cheek with his lips. “If you’re anything like me, the release will make you feel a lot better.”

Her thumb traced his lower lip which broken open when one of the guards uppercut him in the face. She was still trying to stand, get her bearings and her balance.

She closed the space between them and knocked the takeout packages off the bed as she reclined, accepting him on top of her.

They met both frequently after that, whenever a mission became too much and a more grizzled man might take to a high shelf liquor, he would fall into her arms, into her bed, they usually had hungry, frantic sex where no clothes even came off. He would groan into the back of her neck as she shuddered, then zip up his pants and leave.

But sometimes he would hold her until she fell asleep and then remove any trace of himself, like he never existed in her room.

“That was great sex.”

“It wasn’t our best.”

“No but as far as first times go—”

“The barbeque sauce made it better.” She side eyes him, folding the last in a large series of panties.

When he groans at her, she arches an eyebrow, kissing the tips of her fingers and stamping them over his lips.

 


	151. Day 151

Cam’s door shuts behind her as she attempts to tame down her hair, running a finger through it to create a part and then pulling two loose pigtails. She steps a few feet forward as  General Landry rounds the corner. Doesn’t know if he’s aware of the intricate aspects of her relationships with Daniel and Cameron, or about the baby they’re expecting, but she’s always assumes he knows, just inherently knows.

“Morning Ms. Mal Doran.”

“Good Morning, Sir” She flashes a toothy grin and has a weird sensation, the nervousness of being caught with a boy, with a man, by her father who never cared what she did sexually or otherwise.

It’s a common Tau’ri feeling but one she’s not really experienced first hand.

She waits for him to say something because he pauses for a quick second to tie his shoe. Her heart beats a little faster. He could say countless things about her and Cameron, about her and Daniel, about the baby, about how she keeps pilfering items from the lesser privates’ dorms.

“How’s your plant doing?”

The plant is an almost black husk of where life once lived. It still sits in her windowsill because she doesn’t have the heart to toss the pot, not after all the time she spent making hers.

“It’s doing brilliantly, should start producing money any day now.”

“Good. Good,” he answers not really hearing her and just continuing his jaunt down the hall.


	152. Day 152

She dreams of the baby.

A baby who eerily doesn’t look a thing like her but is absolutely beautiful. They have the bluest eyes she’s ever seen, might be her own color, but she can’t tell because they’re devoid of the constant melancholic jitters hers have if she stares too long in the mirror.

They also have cherubic hair the color of honey and they sit in Cameron’s lap as Daniel reads to them, throwing around their little chubby hands and giggling with a mouth of sparse teeth.

They are perfect.

It is perfect.

When she wakes, she touches her stomach lightly, like the baby may retreat, finding solace for the first time.


	153. Day 153

“This is dated from over a week ago.”

It’s the first thing he says when he sees the ultrasound picture.

The more she looks at the photo, and she’s been looking at it quite a lot, the more she sees a balloon animal, cylindric with little nubs for hands, floating around in her and although she is more fatigued, she doesn’t feel alone anymore. The haunting, symphonic voices don’t keep her awake for nearly as long or quite as often.

“Sam did a very brief ultrasound to confirm the pregnancy and the age.” Glances over shoulder from where she’s staring at the beam inching its way to the haul of the ship. What kind of lore will they create for their child to help them comprehend how they’ve become simultaneously stuck and unstuck.

“It’s healthy by the way,” when Daniel peers at her over his glasses she clarifies, “the baby.”

“Well obviously.” The manner in which he speaks isn’t harsh, but it confuses her because his words land like bricks. “Why did you take so long to show me this?”

She shrugs still staring out the window, but watching him in the weak reflection, the way his shoulders are tight, the way he adjusts his glasses and the photo to get a better understanding. “I thought it would be a nice Christmas present.”

“Usually you get the presents on Christmas.”

“Yes, and usually there’s snow, and skating, and hot cocoa while caroling, but somethings aren’t the same up here, Daniel:” Her words are harsh, but her cadence is hoarse, it’s rather late and normally they would already be in bed. “If your concerned I didn’t conjure you up something, don’t be, it’s a rather nice sweater.”

“And they say the true surprises in life are gone.” He removes his glasses, setting them on his bedside table, but still holds the picture. “Did you find out?”

“Find out what?” Drifts away from the window to the far side of the bed, pulling the tightly made comforter out and away from the pillows.

When she doesn’t answer he stares at her incredulously. “The father, Vala.”

“Oh, no.”

“Why not.”

“Because I don’t care, Darling.” Tucks her legs in under the comforter to cool sheets growing around her skin.

“I care.” He’s still sitting up, his back away from her but, twisting to find her face in the semi-darkness.

“I don’t care about that either.”

As he scoffs she reaches to pluck the photo from between his fingers, but just as it’s about to change hands, he decides he’d like to keep it. Her tips glide to a halt and the edge the photo tears into her palm drawing blood.

She gasps at the small bite of pain and expects him to tut her away and flip over with his back to her, but he clicks his light back on. “Let me see.”

Her hand supine against his bare thigh, and she notices how the muscles tense and contract while he shoves a handful of tissue into her palm to smother the cut. This thumb plays over her wrist, lapping at the veins. He balls the tissues, then resituates them, compressing down hard and she hisses a bit from the pressure.

“I know it doesn’t feel the greatest, just give it another minute.” Expression lightens and he adds a small tick of a smile, then re-balls the red tissues a final time. She can see his skin on his thigh turn white under the strain.

When he removes his hands from shackling hers, rolling the tissues into a wad and tossing them in the trash, there is only a thin red line etched across her palm in pink irritated skin. She drags a finger over the cut, and he lifts her hand in his, eyeing his good work and planting a kiss across her palm. “There, it’s not so bad now.”

Her hand slides to his face, and she drags his head down until their lips crash, tongue sliding into his mouth, and a hand raking through his hair as the other pushes her up to sit in his lap between his tented knees.

“Vala,” he gasps out between feverish kisses, “what—”

“What you just did was very attractive,” rambles against the side of his neck, while reaching down and stripping her shirt off and giggling when he raises his knees higher, tumbling her into him.

She can’t remember the last time they had unsolicited sex, as their relationship is so different than hers and Cameron’s, which is more united in the understanding of physical pleasures, him licking his lips, an arch of her eyebrow and it conveys more than any words could, but they started the relationship as a mutually beneficial method of stress relief, and kept it discreet by using small tells.

Daniel is more talkative.

Daniel never stops talking, and even as he’s inside her, he asks her for reassurance everything is going well.

The headboard hits the wall a bit and she grabs her pillow as he thrusts up into her, his lips roam over her collarbone and onto the swells of her very sensitive breasts. She gasps, leaning an inch forward and shoving the pillow between the wall and the bed. Her weight falling back on him, almost sets her off and at his next thrust she moans, her face collapsing into the side of his neck while he finishes.

She wakes later in the middle of the night to find him tucked against her from behind, her feet resting on his, absorbing the warmth, his hand draped over her hip, his fingers ticking at her stomach with each breath.


	154. Day 154

It’s her very first Christmas and she’s so nervous she vomits upon waking up. Blames it on the baby when she opens her eyes and immediately heaves over the side of Daniel’s bed onto his undies which happen to have been discarded there last night.

“Gah.” He jolts awake, body bouncing out of bed as the second heave shudders up from her stomach in a loud sickening weep. She coughs and collapses back down into the bed, happy to go back to sleep, but his hand shakes her shoulder when she makes no effort to move again. “Vala?”

“Give me a second, Darling.” Paws at her eyes with her palms and sits up, her feet narrowly missing the pile of vomit on the floor.

“You go get dressed, I’ll go grab a garbage bag and something to clean that up with.” Dances into his sweats and pulls on a black shirt from his dresser, talking to himself as he exits the room, echoing into the corridor, “I don’t know, fire? You think fire would get rid of that?”

Bounces to his dresser, to the one pile she keeps in his third drawer because sometimes her clothes are unwearable the next day and she has to keep up appearances. Grabs a black tank top and a pair of red pants, that still magnificently fit her. She’s having that problem with hips and thighs and her tummy.

Bounds down the hallway to the washroom, slamming into Sam as she exits.

“Merry Christmas, Sam,” shouts to her bleary-eyed friend as she yanks her into a hug, and grins when she feels Sam’s muscles stretch into a smile.

“Merry Christmas, Vala,” Sam yawns back, stifling it with a balled fist.

“Has the fat man come?”

“There are plenty of presents under the tree.”

Sam of course is exaggerating about the amount of gifts, but perhaps something more residual from Qetesh, she loves gifts, the more elaborate the better, and Cameron gets her a box within a box within a box each wrapped more beautifully than the last, she percolates in Daniel’s lap, his thighs tighten to keep her balanced and then at the end she’s rewarded with an stunning hair clippie similar to the one she left back on Earth, the one she’s been pining for.

“Merry Christmas, Princess.”

She bounces on Daniel harder and his arm wraps around her hips, belting her into place.

Get’s the same nervousness when everyone opens her gifts and she sees the appreciation on their faces. Afterwards, her cache of new shiny items set aside, they sit down for a grateful dinner that absolutely stuffs her full, laughing and playing that board game she never could get the hang of and she understands why the Tau’ri love this holiday so much.  


	155. Day 155

The dining area is silent save for the drone of the ship and a thin classical version of some holiday song. Everyone has retired back to their quarters, still riding the joviality of the season, the gift exchange, the nog, and rum, and large bird carcass for feasting. Strings of lights strewn around the window drawing attention away from the single energy beam that haunts their living.

She’s sitting in a chair watching the lights blink peacefully on the tree, angling her head and staring at the basic face on the angel atop, wrapped in her new green robe that’s cool and soft against her skin. A pleasant replacement for a blanket.

“Enjoy your Christmas?” Asks from the doorway, leaning in the arch. His shoes don’t make a sound as he approaches her, standing beside her chair and she wraps her arms around his waist, leaning her head into his hip. “Did you get everything you wanted?”

His fingers weave through her ponytail and she grins against him. “It was a beautiful day.”

“Hey.” His palm falls flat on her back, and she digs her chin into his bone, staring up at him.

“What?”

“Come here.”

She takes his offered hand without hesitation and finds him drifting with her aimlessly through the dining area until she recognizes the actions, the closeness from his high school reunion. The music is violins and piano, airy and sentimental, and when it hits a peak, he twirls her and brings her back close to him as she laughs. He chuckles and the hand on the small of her back floats to her stomach, fingertips touching as gently as her own while their heads bow against each other.

She has everything she wanted.


	156. Day 156

Awakens with Cameron’s arm wrapped around her head and she laughs, her fingers fluttering over the hair on his stomach, stirring him back into consciousness. His arm uncoils as he rolls out his back and she clicks into his side in near perfection.

“How does your arm end up around my head like that?”

“I do it.”

“You do it on purpose?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Presses his lips into her forehead, fingers dragging down the side of her neck, over her shoulders and spine and when she shivers against him, his moves a hand under the blankets, caressing the inside of her thighs, scrolling higher. “Because you have less nightmares that way.”

He kisses her with the intensity she kissed Daniel a few nights ago, the attraction apparent in his lips and growing hard against her hip. She groans as he rolls on top of her, and she gets lost in the spontaneity, the way her body instinctively reacts to his, and it’s so different, so unlike anything she’s had before. He doesn’t ask her if she wants to be on top this time, or if it’s his turn, just rolls with her so she sits with her knees flush against his hips, the covers slide off of her to pile on his legs, while his hands knead at her hip.

And her bedroom door opens behind them.

She doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is, and she doesn’t want to stop because the tremors stumbling through her stomach take precedence to the man who failed to follow the pre-set and agreed upon schedule.  

His hands fall back to her hips, freezing in place, and she merely drags them back up to cover her breasts. In the naturalness of it all, he knows not to stop because she won’t, and the door closes behind them.

They don’t see Daniel for the rest of the day.


	157. Day 157

Breakfast is uncomfortable and silent.

They rose early as it was her turn to cook and he kept her company in the kitchen, sat on a counter tossing blueberries into his mouth and snatching her away from the pancakes she sorely craved, trapped her between his legs and held her until she didn’t want away, until she felt cold when she left.

“These are great, Vala,” Sam compliments, her short stack half finished with three half pancakes remaining. “We haven’t had pancakes in a while.”

She made chocolate chip, blueberry and buttermilk, let everyone pick their own and he just sat across from her, thoroughly enjoying his pancakes nonetheless, and glaring, like he didn’t know they were having sex, and this baby’s parentage came into question some other way.

Just shoveling piece after piece dripping with syrup into his mouth.

“Well.” General Landry stands from the table removing the napkin he’s tucked in to his collar and setting it on his plate. “That was a delicious way to start the day, thank you Ms. Mal Doran.”

She nods to him, a tight grin on her face, her mouth also stuffed with plain blueberry pancakes, and Daniel just keeps on glaring, his glasses magnifying the narrowing of his eyes. Cameron slides his hand down her leg for comfort, and she smiles at him.

Daniel leaves, his plate and cup clacking at his speedy retreat.

Sam watches with checked brows, but she merely shakes her head when her friend glances to her for an explanation. Sam nods once, and stands from the table, Teal’c standing as well, and it’s a very sweet gesture.

“It is my duty to clean after the meal this morning.” He bows a bit differently to Sam, lower, deeper, more sincere. “I will meet you in the lab afterwards.”

“Oh, I got it Big Guy.” Cameron offers, laying his utensils across his cleaned plate.

“Are you sure, Colonel Mitchell?.”

“Yeah, me and the missus got it.”

“Very well.” Teal’c bows in agreement, but it’s not quite the same. He and Sam leave the room walking very close, moving very in sync.

“Thank you for volunteering me for clean up duty after I slaved over a hot stove top to make a delicious meal.” She’s not upset at all, but a little exaggeration is never a bad thing and sometimes it garners her a little extra.

“Oh, you don’t care.” But he knows her so well at this point and it surprises her every time he calls her on something. “It’ll give you an excuse to be away from Jackson for a bit longer.”

“I think he’s still a bit offended at what he witnessed last night.” Is skilled in collecting plates even though her waitressing gig lasted only two weeks, stacks similar plates and balances cups until all the dishes on the table are organized into two like piles.

“Can you blame him?” He watches her work, knowing the majority of the heavy lifting is falling on him. If he doesn’t offer to carry the dishes, and he will, she would bet money on that every time, she would pout at him and clutch her stomach complaining she was tired until he did. Certain perks come with being pregnant, never having to carry things or open doors, conning is also easier with a child, she’s borrowed some on several occasions.

“Cameron, he is singularly to blame.”

“I’m not disagreeing, I’m just saying if I walked in on you and Jackson in the act, it would take more than a few days to get over it.”

Sweeps up the extra crumbs into her hand and deposits them into a cup, then straightens from leaning across the table. “Does it really upset you that much?”

He tugs on her hand, guiding her to him. Eyes him ominously and he wraps his arms around her waist, his cheek pressing against her stomach, nuzzling her, the life growing there, and he doesn’t speak a word.


	158. Day 158

“There, all done.”

Whips the sheet from around his shoulder and all the itty bits of his cut hair fly about the room.

His hand briefly grazes over the back and sides of his head, then he leans in brushing a kiss to her cheek. “Thanks Baby, perfect as always.”

“Of course.” She flickers her hands over his head, sweeping away any stray hairs.

“You too, baby,” he adds, his hand patting her gently on her stomach.


	159. Day 159

“I haven’t been running as much lately.” He’s tucked under the sheets, flipping through one of his old journals. “I used to run the ship twice a day.”

She’s laying on her stomach, feeling the pressure, and working through a book of half-finished crosswords someone left in the kitchen. There’s an earbud in her left ear attached to Cameron’s music player, he’s wearing the other and sharing songs with her to enlighten her musically.

“I’ve noticed you don’t come back smelling nearly as awful.”

He ignores her playful jab and when she glances at him, he’s poking himself in the tummy, an action usually directed at her. “I think I’m getting fat.”

“No Darling, that’s me.” She has a noticeable dive in her stomach now, nothing moderate, just sweet enough to draw the eyes from her trim physique.

Her legs pump through the air, feet bouncing to the rhythm of the song and punting into the pillow beside him. He captures one of her feet and she grins thinking his action is going to turn into something more physical, but his fingers trace around her ankle, the one she rolled. “Where did you get this scar from?”

Knows the one he’s talking about, almost like an inking instead of a scar, white and jagged around the circumference of her foot.

Decides right away she’s going to tell him the truth, she’s in a truthful sort of mood and should embrace it for him, for her, for the sweet bump. “The first time I tried to escape from Fierenze, the electronic bracelet he placed on my leg clamped down on my foot when I left the compound.”

Expects him to ask her to elaborate, and she’s ready to tell him, but his hand trails higher on her bare leg to the back of her thigh, circling around another scar that resembles a star. “Who shot you?”

“The man I was working with, stealing some artifacts out of a very rich, very angry man’s house. He double crossed me and left me to take the blame.” Fills in the word ‘pretentious’ in 34 across. “What’s the capital of Arkansas?”

“Little Rock.” The bed creaks as he leans forward, his hand travelling further up her leg, over the curve of her bum, the tiny pair of shorts she won’t be able to wear for much longer, rubbing over the area of red puckered skin forming in a blistered mass by her left hip. “This?”

Knows his game now and will ride high on the truth until it becomes too much for him to accept. “Tomin shot me with an Ori staff when I jumped in front of Daniel. Adria started to heal me, she got to the tissue deep in my body which is probably the only reason I could conceive another child; the burn was never fully healed though.”

Fingers delve under the bottom of her shirt, fan over her back, dragging over a thick white scar between her ribs. Before he even prompts her, she answers. “Crashed a cargo ship trying to get away from a particularly abusive ex-husband. A piece of metal from the console pierced me between my ribs and perforated my lung. If I wasn’t already wearing the healing device, I would be dead.”

Up to the thin lines scratched into the top of her back, his hand tenderly directing her hair to drop over her shoulder. “Fierenze and whippings with his belt. Pretty self explanatory.”

Fingers fall to the side of her arm like the rain she wishes so much to feel, jump, drink, dance in. Splay over the multiple skin discolorations, some strips lighter, some darker, dappled on the underside of her bicep. “Villagers trying to beat Qetesh and only getting me. What’s a score of nothing in a tennis match? Four letter word.”

“Love. How?”

“Love? No, Cameron, a tennis—”

He’s very close again, his breath dancing over the bare skin on her shoulder, handling her arm like it’s a unique ware. “A score of zero in tennis is called love. How?”

“Some uses of Tau’ri words are so—”

“Vala, how?”

“The same way Qetesh loved to kill, flaying. Skin from muscle. Muscle from bone. That was the only area the Tok’ra couldn’t fully heal because it was too far gone. I’ve grown to appreciate it, sort of mottled like a leopard’s skin. I’m more appreciative of them deciding to give precedence to healing my face because from what they told me it was quite—”

“Stop.” Asks with a cracking voice, not a command, a plea as he clings to her, his mouth hot and wet on her shoulder from emotion from overloading on horrible little snippets of her life.

 

 


	160. Day 160

Since Samantha and Muscles were charged with decorating for Christmas, and did such a lovely job of it, she and Daniel are tasked with removing the decorations, which is much easier in idea then actual accomplishment.

He’s still hell bent on acting pissy towards her and the tiny bump she’s now not trying to showcase, but it takes the spotlight of every outfit like a red light. She’s wearing a tank top under one of Cameron’s flannels, a light blue one that still hangs off her and hides their baby from being a public topic.

And since Daniel won’t talk to her, they’re working separately on similar tasks. Daniel is sorting the items that she removes from the tree into three separate boxes, but they’ve barely said anything to each other.

A little before noon Cameron pops in dressed in a jogging outfit, his face a bit red and slick with sweat. He has on his music player and when he approaches her on the ladder she plucks a bud out of his ear and takes a quick listen to the heavy electric guitar and rambling drums. He holds up a bottle of water to her, “just in case you get thirsty, you should probably start drinking more water.”

She taps in delicate footsteps down the four rungs of the ladder and carries the box of ornaments over for Daniel to sort through. “The more water I drink, the more I have to pee.”

“Yes, but the more you pee, the less evil stays in you.” Rolls her eyes at him ignoring the comment and steps onto the first rung of the ladder. “Okay, I’m going back for round two.” He jogs a few feet almost to the door, but then backtracks. “And I think it goes without saying that you shouldn’t be on that ladder, but since me or Jackson probably can’t talk you down from it, be careful.”

Swats at him but misses as he disappears out the door. They continue to work in the quiet hum of the Odyssey until he states, “you don’t have to rub it in my face.”

She doesn’t quite understand the implication of his words as she plucks little bears with Christmas hats and random fat men from the tree. “I’m sorry, Darling?”

“You and Mitchell,” his voice is louder, his words are angrier, hold a heavier meaning. “You don’t have to flaunt your relationship around me.”

“Is that what you think we’re doing?”

“Well from what I’ve seen, Vala, and I’ve seen a lot, yeah that’s what I think.”

“I’m sorry that’s how you feel.” The apology is genuine, and she climbs two more steps to unravel tinsel from around the top of the tree, letting it fall halfway down for her to collect. “But we’re not trying flaunt anything, that’s just how we act.”

“You act differently with him.” He’s petulant like a child, like a hungry baby, unmoored in his jealousy which she knew would always be an issue. Daniel likes to keep his belongings a certain way, clean and in pristine condition, but he’s never fully grasped that she doesn’t belong to him or Cameron or anyone really.

“He’s a different man than you, Daniel.” Unravels the last band of popcorn all put together from kernels from the basement crates.

“Fine.” He’s turned towards her now, arms crossed, leaning back against the kitchen table. “Tell me how it’s different with him.”

“This is not a good conversation to be having.” Shoots him a warning look, letting him know she’s liable to leave if he keeps his attitude up.

“No, we’re all adults in this situation, in this obscene relationship. Tell me how we’re different.”

Climbs up to the top rung to remove the last decoration on the tree, the angel with a geometric wooden ball face and curls of straw for hair. It reminds her of a doll she had when she was very young. “I don’t know Daniel, with Cameron it’s more natural, we’re more in unison. We know each other better.”

When he doesn’t reply she presumes he understands the situation, she and Cameron were together, albeit randomly, for over a year before she and him were together and perhaps he comprehends the time it takes to learn another person’s body, but he shouts something in anger at her. Something she doesn’t translate before the ladder topples, tossing her from the treetop to the metallic floor in less than a second.

While she regains her composure pushing herself up on her side, wrenching away from the thick edge of a broken cardboard box beneath her, she hears a familiar sound, the thwack of skin hitting skin in spiteful intent barely audible over her heartbeat in her ears, over the voices rising up.

Muscles, directs Daniel from the room, a hard hand on his arm, before addressing her, “Vala—” his voice is stunted “—MalDoran are you injured?”

“No, I—” grabs the hand he offers to her and stands up with a dizziness circling around in her head. “Just a little lightheaded.”

“Why would Daniel Jackson act in such a way.” He helps her walk over to where the chairs are piled against the window, the beam watches from the outside.

About to ask what exactly Daniel did, but concludes before she speaks.

The ladder was stable and set by Cameron, there was a thud of impact against the far leg before she fell. The clarity of it, the obvious fuel to his actions, hurts more than where she impacted the ground.

“Words,” she answers rubbing the back of her head where it whipped down at an odd angle.

Cameron must be done the second leg of his jog and he bounds back into the room, searching for her first at the Christmas tree, then noticing Teal’c tending to her by the window. He bounds towards her, redder, sweatier, more out of breath than before, and his eyes flit over her body investigating, searching for an injury.

He crouches before her, hands on his knees still swallowing to catch his breath. “What happened?”

“When Vala Mal Doran reached to collect the angel at the top of the tree, Daniel Jackson—.” Muscles answers for her because she’s not sure she can really elaborate much; her head is a bit pained and she’s more than a little confused.

“What?” Cameron darts up, but Muscles swings an arm around his, holding him in place using the same method from the day Daniel found out about his relationship with her.

“Samantha and I will question Daniel Jackson when he wakes, he’s of no concern to you—”

“Like hell, Teal’c, he—”

“Cameron.” Reaches a hand out to him and the fury, the violence behind his balled fists sweeps from his body, and he turns all his attention to her. “I want to go lie down.”

“Shit—I didn’t even—” his hands hurry over her face, the back of her neck, her sides, rest against her stomach. “Are you okay? Tell me you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.” Scoops his hand into hers with a reassuring smile. “Just very tired and a little dizzy.”

“I’ll walk you to your room.” Helps her stand and the room slants a sideways a bit, the light reflecting off silver and red tinsel a little brighter, scattering a bit differently. The voices roaring in her ear. “Teal’c—”

“I will inform General Landry and Samantha.”

“Thank you.” They leave the dining room with his arm slung around her back to help support her sluggish footsteps.

 


	161. Day 161

General Landry is irate about their lack of adult attitudes and the hesitance to tell him of her pregnancy. Seems he didn’t know after all and became very awkward once he found out. Knows Daniel was sequestered to his room, and that there was a discussion about what happened; however, she was not invited.

Spent most of yesterday with Sam. They ducked into the medical bay for another ultrasound and exhaled in unison when it came up clear of any abnormalities. Sam offered to tell her the baby’s gender, but she refused to find out, she’d know soon enough. They returned to her room, watching romantic comedies and eating popcorn until Cameron sought her out. Sam pulled the nervous smile at her but gave her a hug before she left.

“I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Me too.”

The door barely closed behind her before Cameron asked about the baby. She assured him it was in perfect health and he grabbed her, clung to her and she thinks this is his new form of comfort evolved from his knee jostling.

“That was close, Vala.” When she didn’t answer him, just snuggled into his chest, he spoke again, “That was too fucking close.”

They have a lunch date today, he woke up early to have a discussion with Landry but was hesitant to leave her. Is well aware that at some point in her life most people turn on her. Very few have garnered her full trust. Her mother, her first fiancée, and perhaps Cameron. She’s seen in his eyes, trusted him with untold parts of her  normally glossed over the same way as a bloody ultrasound picture, and he’s never wavered, stood strong in the storms of her past.

She shuts her door behind her, still wearing his flannel because it smells like him and it’s comfortable against aching breasts and the indigestion she awoke with. Rounds the corner to the washroom where she keeps her prenatal vitamins, and a sharp pain twists into her side like a blade, like the corroded piece of ship metal between her ribs. Her step falters and her eyebrows fall as she tries to understand the pain, gently probing her fingers into her side, but finding no more.

Takes a few more steps to the bathroom and another spontaneous bolt of pain rips through her side, stronger, more urgent than before, and she runs by the bathroom. With each step the pain increases, her insides kneading together, razor sharp aching, blending, just ripping. Only ripping and she knows what it is. Knows because she’s experienced it before in her nightmares, in her captivity by Qetesh.

Pants her way to Samantha’s lab where the little gray Asgardian greets her and she panics, her heart in her ears. The next wave of pain is too much, and she doubles over, her hands digging into her stomach, as she shouts for help, and then screams, a wild throaty scream she’s never heard before. Then there’s heaviness, a wetness through her jeans, pouring onto the floor like water from a tap, bright red and heavy and it’s slick between her fingers and in her hair.

Cameron calls for her out in the hallway, spinning at the doorway and she wants to call out to him, but she doesn’t know where she is.

The golden fields of her home world undulating in her mind in the fresh spring wind. Her fiancée kissed her cheek and they reveled in where they would build a home and raise a family.

The golden shimmering and metallic chambers of Qetesh where naquadah flowed like ambrosia and men threw themselves at her feet as tribute, to die in bed with Qetesh was a death of a valiant man, she sipped a berry wine and laughed at her good favor.

An expression of horror on his face when his compass needle spins in the right direction and he locates her, knees bent, upper body leaning out, standing barefoot in a good portion of her body’s volume of blood. The sterile white floors are tainted, red seeping between the grout of the tiles, her hand slaps the table, slipping with blood and leaving a print.

Catches her this time as she topples forward, no chin on the ground, no skates on her feet. No stop to the blood that’s still flowing from within her like veins of naquadah buried deep in mines that she forced workers to dig for her because she was scared and alone and starving and slowly dying.

No one would care for her, so she had to make someone.   
She had to make someone.   
She made someone.   
She was making someone.

He is voiceless in his screaming, in his face red and wet as she sinks in his arms, her vision bursting with colors, with white speckles and a gray border creeping in. His hands compress her cheeks, he smooths her bloody hair, he’s speaking words just for her and it’s a pity she cannot hear them. The voices are voracious roaring inside her head like a battlefield, and his tears are landing on her forehead and she doesn’t know why he’s crying.

Why is he crying? If she wasn’t so tired she would comfort him.

Then she doesn’t see him for a long time.


	162. Day ###

She doesn’t know where she is, just where she was before.

A place she’s been twice now, well, three times.

A black voided nothingness.

Not floating or sinking.

No voices or words.

No touching or tasting.

No sight, just black in suspension, and she hates it.

She’s terrified of it, the nothingness that’s always waiting for her. Waited for her after her immolation, and she still felt the pain, still feels the pain now, just not her skin, not her toes. Not her dissected body floating through time into another galaxy, and then falling from the sky, she was taken apart and put back together from trillions of pieces and in the downtime, it was all black and nothing.

It is black and nothing.

Was nothing.

Now it’s a steady beep to her left, the hiss of the oxygen rushing through her nose, the dull prick of an IV through the back of her hand, and the deep snoring of a man, also to her left. The room is dull, dark blue and in the corner there’s a television propped up on a medical trolley droning out one of those stupid military movies.

Her hand is heavy and light at the same time, moving her fingers is familiar but the movement drags, like her hand is stuck in cement, but she raises it, plastic tubes glistening in the beam light, and drops it on his hand curling around the silver railing keeping her captured in the bed.

His fingers are warm, his eyes twitch open, and he responds to her like any other day he wakes up next to her. Leans forward, kissing her dry lips, then her forehead.

“Hi Honey.” Her hand, the one without the IV, is warm and captured in his, his chin resting atop of as his body shakes from a sigh. “Thanks for waking back up.”

“Well I couldn’t just leave, you’d jog until you ran out of ship.”  He grins and his eyes are very red and puffy. Drops a few kisses onto her hand and holds onto it like he’s sinking. She swallows, knowing the answer but needing to ask, “how bad?”

Doesn’t answer, but watches her and his eyes, the wetness dances, and finally he drags his mouth up from her hand, still bundled within his, and answers, “bad.”

Uses her free but cabled hand to prod around over the covers finding a new incision beside her right hip, a partner for the burn scar on her left, and she knows what happened, knew it was going to happen before it did because she’s not meant to be a mother, she’s not meant to care for things, she’ll only disappoint.

Always disappointing, always deceiving, just one smile short of actually being pleasing.

Her hand breaks from his and touches the more than stubble against his chin and he clings to her, hand around her elbow, another around her wrist, and his eyes hold all the hurt she always feels, always internalized, but never sees personified. “I’m sorry.”

Because it was his baby too.

“No. No. No.” Stands and his seat groans across the floor, and he leans to her and on instinct she flinches. 

He kisses her on the forehead, the cheek, the nose, and she cries, at first from confusion, a little from fear, but then from the loss, from his refusal to cast blame, and he rests the side of his face against hers, wet with tears and he cries with her.

Because it was his baby too.

 

 


	163. Day ###

“Well you’re certainly looking better.” Samantha writes her vitals on a whiteboard they’ve leaned against the wall by the door, every three hours they check her oxygen, her pulse, her blood pressure, and other stupidly menial functions, then jot them on the board. Usually Cameron does it mid-conversation as if he’s just remembered and she hates it. “Feel like you could eat something?”

“No,” answers in distraction, staring at the beam. It looks closer. “I’m not quite up to it yet.”

“It’s been a few days, Vala.” Samantha’s face falls in concern. “You’re always snacking, you must feel hungry.”

When Cameron ran to shower and grab a change of clothes, she got Samantha to crack about what happened. She lost over half her blood on the lab floor and would most likely be dead if Cameron hadn’t fired up the matter creator and got something they called a universal type. Apparently she’s AB negative which is rare. Teal’c and Sam cut into her to stitch where she just won’t stop bleeding and when that failed to work, Cameron delivered the healing device from her bedside drawer among the condoms, bloody ultrasound picture, and a baby birthing book she no longer needs.

Samantha was able to heal just enough to clot her. Inside she is on fire. She’s on daggers and glass and entirely too empty.

“I don’t feel anything.”

 


	164. Day ###

He doesn’t leave the chair beside her bed, at least while she’s in it.

Helps her on brief sojourns to the washroom where he supports her while she stands, helps her undress, readies a washcloth and runs it hot over her skin, over the however-many-day-old bloodstains between her legs, around the stitches gnashed into her hip like gnarling teeth.

Gives her the blue t-shirt with the golden emblem and presses her against his chest, his nose flat against the side of her neck and he inhales her, his arms shaking around her body, trying to hold still, to not alert her to his defeated body, when hers is in such an awful state.

Her lips brush against his temple and he sighs her in, “that was too fucking close.”


	165. Day ###

Tempts her with popcorn. Sits in the squeaky uncomfortable chair and puts the bowl on the bed beside her, little puffed kernels filling all the way to the brim. He acts like he doesn’t notice she’s not eating, but he does, and he worries but he never forces her.

Never forces her.

And maybe his normalcy is what she needs.

After twenty-five minutes into the movie, her hand slides into the bowl, bringing a scoop of popcorn to her mouth and the smell is heavenly. She crunches loudly down and points at the screen. “Cameron, what is this?”

To his benefit he only gives her a slight pause before answering and he hides the grin on his face well. “I thought you’d be tired of military movies, so I brought a superhero one.”

“Why isn’t that one wearing pants.”

“He doesn’t need to wear pants because he’s so evolved it doesn’t bother him.”

She’s on her sixth handful now, his arms are crossed in indication that the bowl belongs to her. This is the most she’s eaten in the last four days. She could have asked for any type of food and they would’ve gotten it for her, but it wouldn’t have mattered.

“So he’s ascended.”

“Kinda, I guess.”

She’s almost cleared through to the bottom of the bowl with the bits of burnt and abandoned kernels, and wonders which create he raided in the lower deck.

“But he returned, like Daniel?”

In a voice so gritty, a voice she’s never heard from him before, she can almost see the words drip from his mouth, he snarls, “we don’t talk about him.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The movie they're watching is Watchmen


	166. Day ###

Day ###

Despite daily bandage changes, her incision, the loopy grin stitched into her hip, is starting to turn. No one’s really noticed because she usually does the cleaning and bandaging herself. She’s bedridden a little more than half her time, but it’s easy work and it makes her feel like less than an invalid. The skin is red and yellow, the stitches are prominent and itchy over purple bruises and there is greenish liquid oozing out from in her.

Definitely not Samantha’s best work, but a valiant effort.

She covers the wound with a new dressing and rolls the old crusty one in tissues, tossing it into the garbage.

 


	167. Day ###

“Tomorrow you should be able to go back to your room.” Samantha writes out her vitals on the whiteboard, still organized nicely into rampant lists of numbers. “How’s the incision?”

“It’s fine.” She reclines against the head of the bed, eating a plain doughnut, because when Cameron asked her what she wanted for breakfast, it was the only thing she could think of. It tastes like nothing, and she rolls the soft inner dough between her fingers until it’s tacky.

“Then you should do a trial run.” Samantha’s grin pulls wide as she checks something off her clipboard and slides it underneath her arm. “Come to the dining room for dinner tonight.”

Cameron swings her arm a bit, her hand ensnared in his once again. “I think we’re having chicken strips.”

“I don’t know if that’s the best idea.”

Cameron doesn’t answer her, his chin scratching against her knuckles as he waits for her to elaborate.

Samantha, however, understands immediately. “He’s still sequestered to his room.”

“Nothing’s been decided yet?”

“There’s been a little disagreement with—”

Her hand plummets from being ensconced in his as he spins his back to her, a hand thrown over his eyes, jaw set in deadly strength, his teeth crushing against each other.

Her hand reaches back for his because it’s her life preserver out in the middle of the ocean, and she bobs along getting tired of treading water, but knows she can hold on to him. When she spends too much time confusing the voices and the words and the places and bodies in her sleep, when she ruminates too hard on how easy it is to feel empty after feeling so full, he pulls her up and treads for both of them.

“I’m sorry, Darling.”

Samantha’s eyes race from her outstretched hand to Cameron turned away from her, the skin flushed on his neck and arms. She holds her arm straight as a tree bough, her apology swimming in the space between them, all as unwavering as Samantha’s observation. Her friend takes a step forward and opens her mouth, brows drawn in confusion ready to mediate, but he pivots back to her, clasping up her hand in his and placing a kiss on the back.

“I’m sorry.” His lips speak the word against her skin as he drops two more kisses. “I’m sorry.”

 

 


	168. Day ###

Samantha walks in on her changing her bandage, sitting on the side of the bed, with her top drawn up under her breasts and sopping at the yellow ooze exuding from within her.

“Vala, on my God,” she exclaims and directs her back on to the bed. “That’s infected.”

“It’s fine.” She attempts to sit up, but the cramping, the dull pain accompanied by Samantha’s hand on her shoulder keep her locked in place.

Samantha doesn’t give any intention of hearing her, instead buzzes the com system calling for Teal’c to meet her in the lab and for Cameron to come to the medical bay immediately. She counts the breathes until he arrives, seventeen, and he’s panting because he was by the incinerator for garbage duty. “Everything okay?”

“Her incision is infected.” Samantha unhands her, trusting that she’ll stay in place, perhaps trusting Cameron to keep her in place.

“What?” He bursts into the room, spinning around Samantha as she spun around him on roller blades and it wasn’t on this ship, but it was, and it was so long ago but not. The song playing away the voices, his voice guiding her out of a nightmare, his arm wrapped around her head. “No, Vala said it was fine. Let me see, Princess?”

She likes that it’s a question but doesn’t guide up her shirt, instead when she offers no resistance he flicks up the hem until he sees the weepy mess. “Oh God.”

“Exactly.” Samantha huffs, grabbing the clipboard with a copy of her vitals, her weight and height from a side table. “I’m going to have Teal’c help me research the right antibiotics to give to her.”

“Just get penicillin, a high dose of it.” Calm voice for her and delicate maneuvers with his fingers to square away the shirt from the wound.

“With her injuries and all the previous trauma, I need to make sure—”

And they continue to converse as if she isn’t in the room.


	169. Day 169

“It’s looking better already.” He speaks against her stomach, words lapping at her skin.

The medication they have her on upsets her stomach but apparently is very efficient. So they give it to her twice a day with an anti-nauseant that exhausts her into a shroud of half-wakefulness and she sleeps her life away.

“It’s only been a day.” Expects the antiseptic ointment to be cold against her stomach as it was last time, but it’s not, it’s oddly warm leaving her aching muscles unclenched.

As if he can read her thoughts, if he could he wouldn’t be wearing a grin, he answers, “I warmed it up with my hands a bit, you didn’t like it to much last time.”

She nods as he pastes the new dressing over the wound and crawls carefully up her body, so his face lays even with hers. “Everything okay, Princess?”

“Just tired.”

He leans beside her on his bed, an elbow digging into the mattress as his free hand strokes her arm. “If you were more than ‘just tired’ would you tell me?”

“Of course.”

She wouldn’t.

 It’s a lie, the kind they should see through by now, notice from a mile away, know her smile, like the bandage on the hole in her body, is merely pasted there.

He does hesitate, a split-second squint of his eyes before he kisses her cheek. “You keep me sane.”

“I thought running kept you sane?” Shuffles beside him, injured hip in the air away from the pressure of the mattress, her forehead tucked under his chin.

“You’re my everything.”


	170. Day 170

She awakens with his arm wrapped around her head and his hand warm on her scarred, but uninjured, hip. Her ribs jut out a little more, from lack of appetite, from gulping down trauma like the air just over the break of the wave crests.

Her wound seeps a little into the new bandage.


	171. Day 171

She walks to the washroom on her own and pretends that the new box of tampons doesn’t bother her. Doesn’t boil objections and flashes where her stomach held the sweetest hint of a bump and the person within had such a bright future.

She’s wrapped in her blanket again, the lovely green and red robe gifted to her at Christmas fell victim to leagues of blood flushing from her body. In the mirror her face is gray, the bags under her eyes more prominent then ever before and there’s simply no beneficial reason for it. She sleeps all day tucked away under the fortress of a heavy knitted blue blanket Cameron’s mom made him and wakes to fall back asleep.

Teal’c almost slams into her when she exits the door, the idea of him circling around outside the washroom waiting for Samantha to make an appearance causes her heart to warm just a bit.

“Vala,” he greets with a genuine grin gracing his face. His hands clasp behind his back and he does one of those little half bows. “I’ve been inquiring as to the state of your health quite frequently with Samantha; however, she has reiterated to me several times that you requested no visitors.”

“Yes.” She twists her body a bit away from him, not really looking for a conversation or questions that she cannot answer or inquiries that she’ll have to lie to answer.

He doesn’t respond per say, merely plants a hand in the curve of her neck and shoulder, causing her eyes to drift up to him. “I am sorry for your loss.”


	172. Day 172

She’s lying on top of the covers, her bandage and stomach exposed to the cool air. Her shorts fit fine again, a little loose if anything, riding low on her hips. Both buds of Cameron’s music player are jammed into her ears because the voices are back with a vengeance. The philosophical questions, the constant badgering, the religious rants, the screaming pleas all break through the haze of her antibiotics and keep her up, and it’s exhausting, the whole thing is exhausting, and she wants it to be over.

But it won’t be any time soon because Samantha is too preoccupied with helping her stunted recovery to find new methods and theories of getting off this wretched ship.

Tears sizzle in her eyes and jump over the side of her cheek, streaking and drying far too cold as she listens to the twanging strings of an acoustic guitar and the imploring voice of the singer. She doesn’t hear him open the door and approach her until it’s too late to hide her tears, her body jerks in the opposite direction as he plops down on the bed beside her, and removes one of the buds from her ear, placing it in his, listening to the song with her.

She thinks if she can make it to two hundred days, the nice fat rounded number pregnant with so many possibilities, if she can carry the burdens and the pain and the emptiness and the voices until that day, that she can begin to recover.

Begin to heal.

“Do you want to talk?” His chin juts hard into her shoulder, feels the pressure of the words as they leave his mouth, but she welcomes the distraction from the tightness of her own skin, the shackles around her chest that hitch her breath.

Glances sideways at him through glossy vision and teardrops caught on her lashes.

“No.”

His fingers trace numbers, figures, and dates over her arm, and the tightness dissipates a bit, the vice on her ribs hisses away and she inhales freely while listening to the playful pounding of a piano.

Can he tread with her for another month?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The the guitar song is "From Russia With..." by Fences  
> The second is Sapokanikan by Joanna Newsom


	173. Day 173

She paints a single pot at the kitchen table.

Samantha reverted back to her pre-medical emergency self state using her laboratory as a place of seclusion. Teal'c and Landry are in the east hall playing chest and Cameron is running the monthly diagnostics on the ship to ensure it won't crack apart.

No one will answer her about Daniel.

Intended on cotton candy colors. Swirls of pinks and purples and blues, but it's all red. Just red with a few misplaced black fingerprints and it's hideous and she wants to throw it to the ground and scream, just scream until she can't, until she topples to the floor and gasps heavily for more air to scream, wants the terracotta pieces embedded in her feet, her arms, her legs just to release the pressure inside, wants to see if the red is the same red that—

"Ms. Mal Doran." General Landry greets as he shuffles into a chair across from her. Surprisingly there's no paint strewn across the table, not red staining her hands, face, her hair. She can still feel it in her hair, her hair hasn't been clean since. "How are you feeling today?"

"I'm fine," responds in a manner that completely denies this.

His face is an absolute mask, unemotional, non-confrontational, uninvested. "We're enjoying having your company back at mealtime."

She's all of those things, brimming with emotion, experiencing everything and anything and drowning as she tries to doggie paddle to day two hundred.

In a small voice, still dictating her point, she declares, "I don't need to be checked in on, Sir. More than ever, I do not require a babysitter."

"Teal'c whooped my butt at chess so I decided to stop by to see how my pot was coming." He pulls the pot towards him; it looks ancient and spiteful. Looks like if someone drank water from it, they would be tainted by evil spirits. "Looks good. How's your money tree doing?"

"It's dead."

"Vala," he sighs, but still his façade is so strong, his expression a weird combination of stoicism and compassion. "I don't pretend to know anything of what you're going through." He tucks the dried pot underneath his arm. "But these things happen for a reason."

Then why are they on this ship?


	174. Day 174

Couldn’t breathe.

Woke and the air just wouldn’t go in.

Woke in the throes of an invisible hand wringing out her body.

It’s too small.

The ship, the room, the bed.

Her body too small to hold all the details it does, the scars, white inkings on her skin, the broken bones healed to a hair width of a black line on an x-ray.

And she couldn’t breathe because when she’s lucky enough to sleep, when she wakes, she doesn’t remember immediately, and for a precious few seconds she thinks everything is well and her constructed, montaged family unit is still intact.

Then the memory hits her like a bullet, like a cheap uppercut to her stomach, and her pelvis lights on fire, burning up the muscles in her back and liquefying her organs.

“It’s too small.” Tells him when he wakes up next to her, fingers frantic and flitting around her body almost mechanical, searching for the injury. Has both her wrists in his hands and she goes slack with sobs.

“Look.” Guides one of her hands to his face, to his cheek where coarse hair begins to grow, her fingers splay to the bridge of his nose and back towards his ear. “Vala, it’s me. I’m here.”

Misunderstanding. It’s not a nightmare. It’s a discovery.

A realization.

A horror.

Thumb fans over his lips and he kisses the pad with his words. “You back?”

Wants to correct that she was never gone, but she worries him enough without another added burden. Only nods, trying to blink away the tears.

The tears that double when he wraps an arm around her head.

 

 


	175. Day 175

Sits in the alcove, humming along with the _Odyssey_ , over the heavy drums pumping out of Cameron’s music player. Can only really function with one bud in, the other hangs at her chest. Drags her finger along the indentations in the wall and wraps her blanket around her knees when the central cooling system kicks on blowing harsh air her way.

Teal’c and Samantha round the corner, mid conversation, holding hands because no one is present. The way they move is natural, the side of his body, his hips caressing the side of hers with each step, it’s peaceful even, and they don’t see her in the shadows as they pass.

“I am just discussing the possibility—”

“Teal’c, Vala is doing good. Her wound is clearing up, she’s on her last round of meds, she’s going to be okay.”

He anchors Samantha in place as she attempts to duck into her lab and out of the conversation. “This is all very agreeable.” Then he reels her in towards him, his face falling sterner than usual. “However, I believe a different kind of illness is plaguing her.”

“It’s Vala,” Samantha huffs with a roll of her eyes. When Teal’c appears unmoving, unconvinced she adds, “She’s been through a lot worse than this, she’s strong enough to get over this, and it’s Vala,” she dry laughs, “if she was having a problem she would let us know.”

“Indeed.” He still sounds unconvinced and retreats his arms behind his back.

Samantha kisses the tip of her index finger and presses it into the crook of his chin. “You worry too much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song is "Lust for Life" by Iggy Pop


	176. Day 176

She only exists in the pain formulating within her pelvis, the very personification of pain as she closes her eyes and listens to the waves of voices until they sound like waves at a beach.

A body of water she cussed at.

Teal’c sits beside her on the couch in the empty rumpus room or whatever nickname they’ve bestowed the room in whoever’s vernacular. The cushions jump at the added weight, and her body bobs lifeless on the ocean, voices ebbing in her ears.

Even the most fit swimmers get exhausted eventually.

“I’ve figured it out.” Doesn’t bother with his name. Or her nickname for him. Or turning to speak with him face-to-face, eye-to-eye.

“Figured what out, Vala?” Her curtailed name from his mouth sounds odd and jagged, the rhythm of his words cut short and bled out.

“Punishment.” Focusing hard enough will allow her to sense each individual stitch looped across her hip, no part of her left unmarred. “We’re stuck here as punishment.”

The prerequisite ‘no’ never hails from his mouth, his body doesn’t stiffen or slacken, but his hand falls to her knee, cupping warmth in pity.


	177. Day 177

Dares to traverse onto his side of the ship.

His quarantined area because his hands are sometimes quicker than his mind, his mind burdened in almost thirty different languages lags when he doesn’t have the words to properly express itself and like any man he reverts upon his instincts and becomes violent.

Violent and she is burdened with the violence.

Bare feet barely kissing the floor as she bounces from spot to spot without making the grates chitter alerting of her presence. The weight, her weight, her less than her weight when two weeks ago she was more than her weight, creates no noise, no ripples in transference. Something she used as a theft, something that helped her as Qetesh, something she learned with Fierenze.

Halts her movements before jumping to the next area, down the next corridor that takes her by his room where they sequestered him, the polylingual super geek who can only grunt.

Something tickles the bottom of her foot which is unusual when ninety percent of her tactile experience are now different types of metals.

Retracts her foot and angles forward for inspection, finding a tiny sprout worming its way out of a seed discarded between the grate’s teeth. A seed growing and thriving in no dirt, with no water, with no sunlight.

Her plant died.

More than her plant died.

Everything she is and was is now barren, arid, and inhospitable for any form of life.

Blood only her own and it doesn’t pack like it used to, doesn’t heal like it used to, that’s what they said to her, to be careful of scratches and bumps and her mind, captured like a seed in a grate, began to wilt.

It’s not fair.


	178. Day 178

“It’s looking real good, Princess.” His lips feather across the skin on her stomach and she shudders, the muscles in her abdomen crunch and there’s only the fleeting dull pain instead of the sharp jabbing she’s used to.

“Cameron.”

The rough stubble of his beard scratches against her skin, his chin itching away from the incision and inching lower, rolling the top of her yoga pants below her hip. Her hands intercept, before he can fold them down again, holds his heavy head and prickly face.

“Too soon?” asks with a cheeky grin, innocent and inquisitive as he kisses the inside of her wrist, and her collarbone, and the side of her neck.

“Much too soon.”

Six weeks sex rest, as if she actually had a real baby. She still cramps, still bleeds, still aches and while she’s sure an orgasm would help flutter the pain along out of her system, it’s not currently worth the effort of her overtired body.


	179. Day 179

Back in her quarters for the first time since.

The air smells oddly stale for that of a space vessel, there’s also a fine layer of dust strewn across her furniture. Her bed, however, is made and the mess of clothes she left in the corner, across the ground, has been tidied with a military strictness. The bed bounces when she sits, and her purple comforter doesn’t wrinkle under her weight.

Intended to incinerate some unneeded items hiding in her bedside table, but she doesn’t think she can yet, the trepidation visible in her hand as she reaches to pull the drawer out and instead knocks a book, one she found and planned on giving to Teal’c before, before. Before.

Before.

Closes her eyes at the small prick of pain still bubbling every so often at her side. Though the stitches were removed, she adopted phantom pains, believing they’re still there. Still wakes believing a lot is still present. She reaches between the bed and the table, stretching to retrieve the book, and something tickles at her fingers causing her to flinch back.

Angles her head curiously and grabs the light from the table to shine down the dark, narrow space. Behind her, the door hisses open, Cameron trotting in, his steps slowing as he tries to understand what she’s doing.

“Vala?”

“Look.” Beckons him, unwavering in staring at what she’s found.

Doesn’t questions her, just takes a seat next to her when she shifts over. Holding the light for him, he leans forward, squinting his eyes and then shakes his head. “I don’t—”

“Right there.” Points to the meeting of her table and the wall where an ornately spun web decorates the quiet corner.

In the middle sits a spider.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

“How did it get here?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugs, grabbing the empty glass on her table and the book from between her thighs, then he leans forward, grunting, “It must have been on here before we left.”

“Shouldn’t tidying machines have picked it up?”

Returns back beside her with the spider captured beneath the cup. It’s brown with black bands on it’s tiny, hairy legs. He shrugs again. “Nothing is perfect.”

“You’re not going to—” She stops speaking and nods down to the itty bitty.

“What? No,” he reassures taking another glance at the creature who pounds furiously on the glass with teeny feet. “I’ll probably give him to General Landry, help cut down if there are any bugs in his plants.”

“Do you think it knows it’s stuck in a time dilation field?”

“Maybe.” He stands and drops a kiss to the top of her head. “We’ve seen stranger things.”


	180. Day 180

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy six month anniversary!

He tries to get her to dance, knowing she likes to dance, only she doesn’t want to.

Dancing, is a private thing to her, standing on her mother’s feet as a toddler and dancing around the kitchen. The first country dance with her fiancé, the first sense of safety since her mother’s death, juxtaposed with the overtly sexual dances she did as Qetesh, not quite stripping because in order to strip she would’ve needed to be wearing clothing. The dance she shared with Cameron on the day after Christmas where he held her and the life she held, and all the plans they held for the future.

There are only six of them, well five now, she’s beginning to think that Daniel may have been jettisoned, and she only wishes she thought that was a joke. The other four are dancing to something called jazz that’s very upbeat and punctuated, and he reaches for her and she shakes her head, scurrying through the dining hall, arms wrung in tight against her body, at least she thought so until he grabbed her hand in his, still trumpeting laughter and trying to spin her back into the room.

But everything that’s happened, everything she’s done has been so public.

Her obscure relationship with two shipmates is public.

The life and death of her latest child is public.

She claws into what she can to be private, wrenches her arm away from his and says words she doesn’t remember. Storms away from everyone’s still bodies in the beat of a jazzy ocean.

He doesn’t come to her then or later that night and perhaps what she said was too harsh, but the words they blended with the music, and drowned within the orations in her head. Music doesn’t stop them now, omnipresent and haunting and even in her sleep. He distracts her, usually in more acceptable ways, and she regrets it because he doesn’t know about her and dancing, they all know everything, but they don’t know that.

They don’t know about the voices and how each one is a tooth chewing away at her sanity, at her insides slowly bleeding out because the blood doesn’t stop.

Nothing stops

Except for time on the _Odyssey_ and the _Odyssey_ in space.

 


	181. Day 181

Day 181

The _Odyssey_ is twenty-two storeys high. Almost all the floors are locked away from each other, only accessible by stairs, or freight elevators, except for the atrium, which spans open from the main engineering floor, to the top of the ship near conference rooms, and offices.

She spends the night on the upper landing, the highest of the high. It acts as a resting area, a veranda of sorts, with a few couches, a few chairs, and some of Landry’s bigger plants as decoration. There are a few books and magazines strewn about, but she’s unsure if this is from prior to being frozen in time.

Despite ample pieces of comfortable furniture available for her to sleep on, she finds solace on the ground, wrapped in her blanket. The metal from the ship, soothing and different and if she closes her eyes and fades enough she might be able to pretend they’re on a mission camping out on some rock formation.

Cameron burying their extra uneaten food while Sam does the washing up.

She’s asleep first because she always has the latest watch, her nightmares come later in the night so that’s the easiest solution for when she’s around other people, although the team must be aware of them by now.

Must have theories.

Imagines the sounds of Teal’c setting up the auxiliary tent just in case it rains because heavy clouds were in the sky, she hopes it happens on her watch, hopes to jump in puddles and feel the cold water ring between her toes.

Daniel would still be down at whatever cave system they were exploring. Would comeback late enough that he wouldn’t have to do a night watch, would just stammer and rant about his findings and fall into a deep sleep for a few hours before waking and returning to the caves.

When she wakes, it’s not time for her watch. There is no watch. No caves. No team. No Daniel. She doesn’t know the time because she’s mislaid her watch and it doesn’t particularly matter any longer, it’s not as if she’s on a schedule or has a place to be.

She stretches, her back cracks and her side burns with phantom everything. Phantom lives of different people who would’ve called her mama all snatched up and part of her knows she will never recover from this.

Knows that this will burden her forever.

Knows it will bog her down until she’s too weighted, too tired to tread the water.

When she stares over the railing all she sees is black, there is no sense of a bottom, no sense of levels, no sense of height.

No sense of ending.

All she sees is the black.

The nothingness. The encompassing nothingness. The voices dissonant and varying tell her words, spiteful angry words she’s heard from ex-husbands, from ex-lovers, from town people of villages she leveled, of family members to those she slaughtered, of Fierenze as he held her down, of her teammates when she runs off to perform one of her hair-brained plans that they can’t imagine, so it must not be viable.

Nothing is viable.

The nothingness is viable.

Doesn’t understand how or when it happened, but she’s sitting on the railing watching her bare feet swing in the dull light, the whiteness of her skin embroiled in the darkness below. Nothingness curling like smoke around her.

She doesn’t remember the last time she was truly free, the last time she was content with any of this. Definitely before the baby. Maybe with Cameron, but he’s investing so much in her and she can’t give him anything back, not even the basics of necessities.

Doesn’t know if she loves him because she’s unsure if she’s ever truly known love.

Her hands are slick against the railing and she wishes she had a shoe to drop down to listen for the echoing thud. Doesn’t want to thud, doesn’t want to be found, the airlock would be a better fit. Just disappear.

The nothingness isn’t so scary anymore.

“You gave me a scare.” Cameron stands in the gapping entrance of the hallway, his arms crossed, his back leaning against the wall so casually. Doesn’t answer him, just blinks her eyes over to and then away from him.

“I’ve spent at least thirty-six hours searching this ship for you.” His moves slow, not cautious but deliberate and she’s unaware if he knows her thoughts, knows of the increase in voices, knows what she intends to do, or if he’s simply guarding himself because the last time they interacted, she exploded. “I forgot how good you are at disappearing when you want to.”

He’s almost behind her now, and the probability of launching herself from the railing is vastly decreasing. She can’t do it while he’s here, already caused him too much pain.

Already ridded him of one loved one.

“I don’t know how you still manage to disappear on this ship.” His mouth is warm over her shoulder as he places a gentle kiss, his hands snaking around her waist either in love or restraint, perhaps both.

“I need to disappear, Cameron.” Her vision blurs and her words shudder out. The voices in her head real, swirl into the nothingness below.

“And I get that. I’ve spent hours in the cockpit of a fighter craft telling myself not to launch out of the bay.”

“What stops you?”

“You.”

“I can’t—” her head rests sideways against his, his nose pressing into the side of her cheek. “I can’t.”

“You’re allowed to disappear, just don’t disappear completely.” His arms unscrew from her waist and he steps back, in challenge to do it, to stay with him. “It’s a dangerous line, but you’re so smart, so wily, I think you can manage.”

Tears blur her vision again, and she turns back to him, wants to go to him, embrace him and let him comfort her while she sobs and explains about the voices, the burning in her hip, the cramping still in the eviction of their child. “Why?”

“Because I love you.” His arm stretches for her, like she did for him, his back turned and cursing Daniel’s name. As she did after falling into empty boxes meant to house Christmas decorations for another year in the time dilation field.

But like her, his arm doesn’t falter and if she did tumble over the edge she believes he would stand there until the thud and well after. “Is that enough?”

“I think it has to be.” She thinks that’s what she says but cannot be entirely sure. Her voice isn’t there anymore, fallen in, swirling with the others. Her hand slaps into his and is safely pocketed within. He tugs her down and embraces her, consumes her with his body, sweating while she shivers, loving while she is unable.

Lays ensconced with her on his bed, helps her finish another aborted crossword puzzle, his body pressed tight to hers and his chin resting on her shoulder. He jests and pokes fun at the words, at her knowledge comparative to his, tells her funny farm stories, and high school stories, and military hazing stories, thinking each humorous tale eats away at the shell the voices clamp around her, that one time he’ll be able to make her laugh and then that will be it, the threat of her death expires and she’ll be with him for however long the time dilation field will allow.

But that’s not how it works.

She tries to focus on his words over all the others, on his words over the pen scratches on the pale gray paper, over the lyrics on his shared music player, on the countless voices in her head, and she can’t.

She cannot.

Her head sags to his arm, planted underneath her, with a shaky sigh, and he rubs her shoulder, kisses the back of her head, says something she doesn’t hear.

Love won’t be enough.

 


	182. Day 182

She wakes sweating and enveloped, sight flitting around trying to place herself. She’s spent times in so many beds, so many sleeping positions, her mind creates a quick flipbook upon her wake, runs through all possible scenarios and then settles when she’s in Cameron’s room on the Odyssey. His one arm wrapped around her forehead much like the ceremonial headdress it’s become, and the other between her hips and ribs. With lagging comprehension, she realizes she’s panting and hot, lungs expanding against the weight of his arm.

The hand on her head moves to scoop back her hair and she notices he’s humming. The voices stir and screech and talk over, but she settles on the hum because he’s humming for her. The same song that was playing over her music player when she crashed into him in the hallway so long ago, the one with the calliope music and after an exhalation, she relaxes.

“That was some bad dream,” his lips move against the top of her head, his arms not giving any slack, and underneath her hand on his chest, his heart is pounding. In a more subdued whisper he questions, “what was it about?”

Not uncommon for her to wrap her arms around him at this point, rest her head where her hand is and listen to his heart thump as she drifts to sleep again without uttering a single word as an answer. But she stills, scrolling her mind back to her dream which should encompass at least three lifetimes, but it didn’t.

“I don’t remember.”

“You screamed.” He holds her cheeks, perhaps trying to detect her validity, his pupils large and scanning. “You didn’t just scream, it was—it sounded like—I’ve never heard you sound like that before. There had to be a reason.”

“There’s more than several, I just don’t remember which it was.”

And she doesn’t.  

 

 


	183. Day 183

She thought a shower would help.

It didn’t.

Her nerves are frayed, and her body still aches, the blood dwindling, but still present, brights to browns, ever omnipresent.

Now her hair sops, slobbering down the back of her Sol’s t-shirt, the hem becoming unstitched. There’s no point in drying her hair.

No point in the shower really.

Voices echo in from the hallway when she cracks the door to ventilate the shower room. Assumes they’re her normal in cranium voices, but when she concentrates she’s able to discern Cameron’s speech pattern, his intonations and the sliver of an accent.

“I’m not saying I don’t appreciate your concern, it’s that—”

“That you do not believe my concerns are valid.”

“Not entirely.”

“Then you believe she is completely cognizant in her mind?”

“I believe that she’s experienced enough trauma for the lifetimes of all the people stuck on this damn ship.”

“And you do not believe that the loss of her child has exacerbated her already—”

“Stop, Teal’c. Stop.”

“On Chulak, miscarriages were common among women who had been Goa’uld hosts.”

“She didn’t—that’s not why it happened.”

“No. But I am more than familiar with the manifestation of gestational grief—”

“She’s fine Teal’c.” Snaps her head away from the door, because his voice changes to the one she heard while still quarantined to the medical bay, the one of grinding nails and metal, the one dripping with blame. “She’s fine until she says she’s not.”

Boot falls echo down the hallway and when she peeks out again, Teal’c only watches his leave, arms at his side, no utterance of ‘indeed’.


	184. Day 184

The roller skates don’t scare her anymore.

Nothing really scares her.

Used to be afraid of her past, of her memories dredged up in the swirling current of sleep, but now even when she wakes frequently during each night, screaming and clawing at the sheets, even if she takes the sedation medication suggested to her by Samantha, who presses a button without blinking her eyes away from the new theory she’s working on, and zaps a blue and white box containing twenty-four onto the ship, she doesn’t sleep.

Doesn’t remember her sleep well enough to know who or what is chasing her, hurting her, bleeding her, and when she wakes in Cameron’s arms or with his hands trying to steady her enough to break through to her, she can’t tell him what happened because her mind is wiped clean. He takes this personally, that she doesn’t trust him enough to offer him an explanation, knitting all the horrible things that have happened to her into one heavy, suffocating blanket so they can return to sleep in peace and now they’re at odds.

However, he also knows how precarious she is and though she left his room last night, an hour later he trailed her to hers and collapsed on the bed beside her. No talk of love or support, just face buried in her pillows and his arm thrown haphazardly over her chest.

So when he runs towards her in one of the Odyssey’s tighter corridors, and smacks her wheels against the ground with bent knees gaining speed, and they play the paltry game of chicken in physicalities instead of with emotion, it doesn’t surprise her that he’s the one to duck out of the way at the last moment. She spins around him gracefully, perfect in balance and technique, her body an inch or two away from caressing his, and she clacks her wheels intent on a quick getaway.

What does surprise her is the grin on his face.

 


	185. Day 185

“Where is she now?”

“Oh, I have no idea.” He shrugs, playing off the nervous grin as one of humor and forces a laugh, hoping that Samantha doesn’t notice that he’s just as worried. All this she can tell by simple movements of his body, the sway, the way he’s angled. “It’s part of the intrigue of our relationship.”

“But she’s doing okay though.” Samantha adjusts the clipboard beneath her arm and takes a more relaxed pose. “I haven’t seen her in weeks. She used to pop into my lab, bring snacks and talk to me just enough that I could forget where we are.”

“She’s not talking to anyone much these days.”

“Is she still having trouble sleeping?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Does she need more medication? Maybe the Goa’uld healing device could—”

“She refuses to use that damn thing, and she barely takes the meds. I don’t blame her, I don’t want to be stuck on this ship, let alone blitzed out of my mind and stuck on this ship.”

“I’m trying as hard as I can, Cam.”

“I know. I know.” His hand pats her shoulder and he gives her another forced grin before they split and continue down the corridor in opposite directions.

A blonde and brunet little circle moving away from each other beneath her, from where she watches through a grate in the upper vent with the light of the corridor checkerboarding her face.

She knows the _Odyssey_ better than they know her.


	186. Day 186

"I miss the rain.”

Stands barefoot in front of the running shower.

Do they all use the same head when multiple shower trees with multiple shower heads sprout from the floors? She always chooses back left, a little more privacy, but they lock the door, he does behind her anyway.

“Why you missing the rain so much?” She hears the drawl in his voice, the south and the roots of his birth.

He tugs her top over her head, himself already fully stripped, but her preoccupation with the rain, the shower lulled her into a trance. Lips brush against the side of her neck and swoop to her collarbone while his hands fiddle with the buttons on her jeans.

She watches the water fall from over his shoulder, entranced as the steam raises up. Vision clouded white and damp and hot and slippery. Qetesh had bathhouses with natural hot springs dug up for her, but that’s not it, and the voices recoil.

Fierenze used to do a lot of business in saunas. Had her do a lot of business for him in saunas and the steam like the smoke from the ignited Ori oil seizes her lungs and constricts her body.

“Hey. Hey.” Holds the sides of her neck, his thumbs arching her chin up. The haze of steam, of smoke, of random men waiting for her hidden in the mist like predatory animals, diffuses and she sees Cameron, his chest moistened by condensation, his eyebrows lifted in panic or fear and the same wide eyes he had the first time they had sex in the showers.

“It’s fine.” Rubs his cheek, the facial hair growth that she wants gone, but it’s not her place to request.

“Tell me something.” It’s a grumble of a plea and she knows he’s getting tired of viewing the hysterics from the outside without knowing how it happens.

“What shall I tell you?” Is this what love is? When the bad memories attack and the voices are so loud they give her a headache, when she cannot sleep from terrors that she no longer recognizes, but she’s able to focus on him and feel at ease.

“Tell me anything, Princess.”

“I like the rain because my mother believed it was purifying. It has always given me a sense of ease or a calm breath during tense situations or torture.” Flinches at the last word, his fingers tickling down the back of her leopard stained arm, over the white slices in her shoulders.

“Why are you tense?”

“Because this reminds me of a sauna.”

“Why don’t you like saunas?”

“Because bad men did bad things to me in a sauna.”

Expects him to hold her at arms length, try to figure out if it’s a lie or the truth, mostly everything she says is the truth unless it’s out of necessity, depending on how people react, she decides to pass it off as a lie rather than face their ill judgement. But he cradles her head to his shoulder, pets her, soothes her like she hasn’t dealt with the memory for however many years, and he’s the type that will want to know about it, so he never upsets her.

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” A blatant lie of necessity on her part. “It was a long time ago.”

“Vala.”

She pulls away and he lets her, and he doesn’t observe her differently with pain or pity or blame.

He’s not ashamed for her.

She sways her hair to the side, unhooking her bra, and then jitters out of her pants and panties.

“Vala—”

“I know you, Cameron.”

She takes his hand in hers, leading them through the mist and into the rain.

 


	187. Day 187

 

Tells a reluctant Cameron that she’d like to sleep alone that night. Holds his hands at the door to her room and as he kisses her underneath the stark yellow illumination of a hallway light, it’s comparable to her first kiss, what might have been her first kiss, she can’t distinguish most of them anymore after husbands riding on the back of Qetesh’s orgies. But the night was muggy, and insects flew around the hanging porch light, and the boy whose name she doesn’t know had soft lips just like Cameron, and perhaps that’s why she can trust him.

He tucks hair behind her ear and rests his nose against hers, eyes closed in rumination.

He tells her he loves her and all she can do is wave like a future widow offering a farewell as her husband marches off to war.

Her bed feels different when being unslept in so long, her body feels different against the mattress. Lays on her back and sticks both earbuds in, listening to a muted song that sounds like it was recorded long ago and very far away. It’s got piano and maybe violins, she’s still not great at picking out instruments unless it’s the cello. The singer, a man, is not speaking English. Can Cameron speak this language?

Drifts off with the music still playing in her ears and the song is so different, the sound, the language, that the voices sort of hush up and listen.

She wakes more than a few hours later, which is more sleep than she’s garnered in quite some time. There’s only a dull ache in her side and no gush of blood when she moves. She let’s herself be hopeful, let’s herself remember what it was like when the mask of giddy playfulness was her true attitude, and not some persona she stitched into herself.

But before she sits up she senses someone else in the room, someone not Cameron because she’s been stapled to his side long enough to know his form in near unconsciousness. Knows his scent and his posture and the noises he makes when he sleeps.

She knew someone else that well before. Before.

Before.

Knew his scent, and his posture, and the ridiculous stammering that accompanies his sleeping, talking about ascended beings and people she doesn’t know or care to know, talks in ancient, speaks incantations that are so archaic they no longer work. He hogs the sheets too.

Her music runs silent, the song, the one she liked and placed on repeat, has drained the battery in Cameron’s music player.

She hears him breathe, sigh, swallow, and the rustle of his clothing as he leans forward to place his elbows on his knees.

“Hey.” He greets in elongation, his throat sounds parched, his voice used up like he’s spent the last fortnight painting pots, breaking them and screaming.

His knowledge of her may not be equal to his knowledge of Ancient or Tok’ra or Goa’uld or whatever bloody alien culture he’s dissecting this week, but they’ve spent enough time together, enough time laying naked beside or on top of each other to know

“Daniel?” She can smell him, and she knows that damn smell, the kind he gets after a week on an off-world excursion. “Why are you here.”

“They told me about the baby.”

“It’s been two weeks.” Doesn’t say she’s over it. Doesn’t examine him anymore because the crazy man beard is enough to turn her off.

“It’s been hard to get to you—”

“You could’ve asked.”

“—when Mitchell’s not with you.”

“Leave. Now.”

Throws her legs over the side of the bed, ready to burst through the door, but he stands, and at first she assumes he’s respecting her wishes, but then he positions himself between her and the door. She is not afraid; this is Daniel and even in his strongest moment he could only work up a tantrum kick to an already unsteady ladder leg.

“You owe it to me to hear me out.”

“How do I owe you anything?”

“Aside from the obvious—”

“No, enlighten me, Darling, please.”

“Well, I was going to be a father and now—”

“You were never going to be a father, Daniel.”

“You lose the baby to a faulty ladder leg, and—”

“You would have briefly entertained the idea.”

“Somehow I’m punished. Grounded to my room like—”

“You would have held the child once or twice.”

“Two weeks I could have spent in the Asgard core gone because you have bad balance—”

“And then you would’ve taken the child, in seclusion, to the lab, run the bloody DNA test on it and tossed it back to Cameron because your fragile, pathetic ego couldn’t understand the marvelous gift we gave you.”

Her voice rings louder than his, shrouds it in an overbearing tone. However, his fist hits louder than her voice  and in the half illumination, graciously provided by the never ceasing beam, she misses his pullback and receives the hit somewhere between her nose and her mouth. She’s been hit by many men before, mostly husbands, sometimes lovers, maybe an odd Lucien Alliance member.

He pulls his at the last moment, hesitates and his taps her with only a modicum of his strength.

Her punch is not pulled.

Her punch reels him back into the chair.

Her punch is not vaguely related to the sissy jabs she batted him with when they first met aboard a different ship. He doesn’t bleed as much as her, no one bleeds as much as her, but he bleeds and with his fingers thoroughly stained, like the floor of Samantha’s lab, he observes her with an expression of shock.

“You hit me.”

“You hit me, you imbecile.”

“Well, we could always have sex instead,” malice dripping from each of his words as he speaks through his broken nose.

The jokes, the flirty lip pouts and frisky tummy pokes were never her, were always a persona she wore for them, the attitude of an individual who would more easily fit into their team instead of the maudlin hole she became.

It was always the persona and never the real her.

The real her died years ago.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Vala is listening to is La Mer by Charles Trenet


	188. Day 188

Walks in the tranquil early morning, bare feet slapping against the metal flooring, the cool reverberation jolting through her. Samantha’s lab is dim, and she takes a sideways gander at the floor which reveals no signs of blood. Follows the corridor on an upwards slope into the dining area by the table and through a swinging door into the kitchen where Cameron stands at one of the ovens, his back to her.

He must hear the door squeak closed behind her because he checks on her over his shoulder. “Morning Princess.”

Just a quick flick of his head and he returns to shuffling the pan over the element, the action creates a scraping sound and an aromatic smell she’s drawn towards. She passes by all the used dishes piled on the counter for the last few meals no doubt, someone, most likely her, has been slacking on their cleaning duties.

Pushes up on the counter directly behind him perching along the edge and keeping her balance with kicking feet.

“What’s for breakfast?” Her stomach is grumbly for once.  

“Eggs, ham, grits, and biscuits.” Stirs a pot to his left and the pan before him sizzles. “I may not have been able to sleep last night.”

“Well, at least you used your time wisely. It smells—”

“What the fuck happened?” The pots and pans clatter back to the stove top, and he rushes to her, fixated on her newest injury. He grabs a checkerboard towel from the counter top and presses it into her nose to stop an already stopped nosebleed. “Did you fall on the skates again?”

“I never fall on the skates; random joggers meander their way into my path.” Pulls the towel away from her nose, and when he tries to stop her she flicks her fingers at him, shooing away his helpful hands.

“Yeah, those joggers need to learn to stay in their lanes.” Defeated, he runs a corner of the towel under warm water, as she waits patiently, the sink located beside her, and her legs still bouncing back against the metallic cupboards leaving footprints. He dabs between her lip and her nose clearing the blood away. “So how did this happen?”

“I am ready for the delicious breakfast you’ve prepared.”

“Vala.”

“I assume you’ll arrange my plate in the form of a grinning face, because I’m afraid that’s a deal—”

Tries to push down from the counter and he stops her. Has her ensnared, a strong hand on each thigh, his body stopping her propulsion forward. “Was it an accident?”

“Not exactly, well no, not at all.” She points behind him to the black smoke billowing out of one of the pans. “Your beautiful meal is burning.”

“Let it burn.”

“Cameron.” Her head falls against his chest and his body solid and stationary.

“Why won’t you tell me?”

“Because it will be your break.”

 He laughs, or perhaps it’s a scoff. “You don’t think I’ve broken yet?”

“You have.” She pulls her lips tight and runs a hand through her hair, knowing she’ll never have to say a word because he’s intelligent, formulates plans and can easily reverse engineer her words to support his wager. “But not like this.”

After a few seconds his face darkens, skin reddening and his features hardening until they all appear as etched lines on his face. “Where is he.”

“Cameron.”

“Where is he?”

Releases her and she runs to the stove where three pots now sit nearly aflame as he plods away, removing the apron, which has ‘kiss the cook’ scrawled on it in a pretty little cursive.

“Cameron.” Pads after him through the kitchen and by the squeaky door.

“I’ll kill him.”

He very nearly does.

Finds Daniel entering his very own private bathroom bestowed to him after destroying the only chance a new life upon the ship, and delivers a beating that would result in jail time and some very high fines were they back on earth.

And she lets it go on.

A little longer than she intended, but when she calls to Cameron to stop he doesn’t, he continues to pulverize flesh and bone and facial features, and at first she was only viewing through the swinging of the washroom door, but now she’s inside with a front row seat and blood slipping underneath her feet.

Intercoms for Teal’c, for anyone strong enough to separate them, is inclined to do it herself, but if Cameron cannot distinguish her from Daniel, he’ll never be able to forgive himself and it’ll be her who sits watch at the atrium.

But it’s taking to long, no one is coming, and she has to decide if Cameron’s life is worth more to her than Daniel’s. If she’s willing to take a hit in order to separate them. If she can live with Cameron if he does murder Daniel with his bare hands.

When he pulls up his fist again, she wraps her arms around his wrist, not restraining him, but alerting him to her presence and her wish for him to stop. He jerks and she stumbles a bit and she’s ready for him to turn, but he doesn’t. Just holds his hand steady and up, and she stumbles to her knees behind him, his back thrusting into her chest at every pant.

“It’s all right, Darling.”

That’s how they find them, Daniel barely breathing and rushed to the infirmary and Cameron with wild eyes covered in another man, once his comrade at arms, blood.

She rubs a hand over his wet forehead, through his hair like they’re still in the kitchen and he’s still worried about what she’s going to eat.

“It’s all right.”

 


	189. Day 189

Cuts herself in the shower, entirely by accident of course, shaving too fast because she wants to get back and check on Cameron. The cut is by her ankle and as the warm shower water shudders over her, the drops make it look more that what it is. It ribbons down her heel and down into the drain with a gurgle.

Cameron hasn’t left his room since it happened.

Towels off her hair so it’s less of a sloppy mess, and pats down the rest of her body, getting blood on the white cotton in the process and why do women have white cotton anything? She yanks on her Sol’s shirt, and her favorite pair of pajama pants still riddled with tears and holes, then observes herself in the full-length mirror after swiping a layer of steam away. Her nose and the corner of her top lip are swollen, and Daniel might have the worse aim of anyone she’s ever fought.

Cameron hasn’t eaten or slept since it happened.

She pads through the hallway and tries to stay in the natural shadows, so she doesn’t have to answer anyone’s questions about what happened. Thinks she might hear Samantha and the General conversing, but that very well might be in her mind. The voices are still present, omnipresent, but entertained enough to be running on whispers, which is no less ominous.

His room is cold, climate control off, and she shivers, teeth jittering as she closes the door, tossing the towel into the pile of his dirty laundry. Scurries to his bed and under the covers hugging him from behind, her feet burrowing in at the back of his knees.

“Cameron, keep me warm.”

He doesn’t shift, not even when her icy feet pull up his pajama pants and plant onto his skin. She’d question his consciousness if she couldn’t feel his heartbeat.

“How can you—”

“Enough of this.” Means to cover his mouth, but instead ends up covering his ears. He doesn’t ask what in the world she’s doing or laugh at her mistake. They just stay with her hands clamped around his ears, the weight of his head heavy in her palms, just waiting for the other to listen.

“I almost killed him.”

“You did not almost kill him. Samantha says he’s going to be fine, and frankly, maybe this will take a—”

“I almost killed him. I wouldn’t have stopped if it wasn’t you. If Teal’c tried to drag me away, I would’ve fought my way back.”

“You had a reaction and after everything it’s completely—”

“I almost killed him.”

At the third reiteration she tumbles over his body, barely giving him enough time to scoot back and make room for her. He wants to have these conversations in the dark, facing away from her so that he can say what he needs to say unburdened and unafraid, when he doesn’t need to fear her recriminations because the moment she let him know what happened, she became partially responsible.

She covers his ears again, thumbs outlining the edges of them, and she doesn’t say a single thing until his eyes agree to meet hers. They’re a bit glassy and float on remorse, but she pulls a tight smile, understanding, compassionate, and rueful as well.

Removes a hand capturing his, and drags it to her stomach, his eyes dive, then bob back up to meet her again. She doesn’t want to say the exact words, even though they are verified and everyone on the ship knows them to be true. She can’t say the words to him because it might send him in a frenzy again. Can’t say them to herself because then she might start to fully believe them, whereas now, she can get by on knowing they’re true facts without fully comprehending the meaning.

So instead she says, “he ended this.”

Cameron swallows harshly and tries to turn away from her, but she grabs his head, uncovers his ears, and forces him to listen.

“He almost killed me, Cameron.”

He blinks, then sighs as he comprehends the meaning of words he feared to hear. He kisses her palm, and then kisses her face several times in succession, pulling her towards him and making good on her request of warmth.

“What happens now then?”

“Well I didn’t die, he didn’t die, I suppose things simply return to neutral.”

 

 


	190. Day 190

The voices are back with a vengeance, loud and screeching.

She woke to a horrendous headache, covering her own ears this time.

Cameron shot up beside her, reached into the drawer on his bedside table and gave her painkillers. Assured her it was okay, he’d stay, and when she laid back down, his bruised and swelling hands worked their way into her hair, started massaging the muscles in her neck and at the base of her skull and she doesn’t remember him stopping.

She wakes later, how much later she isn’t sure, but he’s no longer in the bed. Doesn’t hold a grudge, she could’ve been sleeping for days, and the clocks on the ship, although try as they might, are not exactly running effectively on time. Everyone has their own sense and to her it’s night, not quiet the witching hour but after ten.

Sleeping for so long takes a toll on a body, any body, but particularly a body in space and as she stretches out her limbs, curling her fingers and toes, she jostles the pair of roller blades he half hid underneath his bed.

A quick change of clothes and lace of skates and she’s racing down the hallway, tying to outrun the voices, which though varied somehow sound the same, the same boom and screech, the same words in different languages.

She never did ask Cameron about the song, gut buried in worries and bruises. In broken bones and lost personalities.

Enjoys the gentle slopes of the vessel, enjoys the music in her ears being barely heard over the crowd in her head. Is she mad? Has always been a bit mad. Had the life for it and double jumped back down the notion like she packs the kitchen garbage all into one bag. Wore flashy grins and provocative clothing, went to prostrations for six hours a day and lived in the Ori galaxy for almost a year, lost control of her body, lost control of her heart.

Why shouldn’t her mind follow?

She’s back at the landing, the high landing presiding over the atrium, and this time she’s wearing shoes, well skates. Could let one tumble and drop off her foot, count the American rivers until it hits the ground and then wait for the thunder to see if the storm is encroaching or leaving. Is she leaving? If this is the real her encroaching, she’s not going to be able to manage quite longer. Broken bones and blood, contusions and incisions, men and their fists.

Men and their feet.

One man in particular and a ladder.

She swirls in reflection, in the beat to a song that he put in a playlist just for her entitled ‘Roller Skating: Don’t Hurt Yourself.’ It’s very clicky and has very high-pitched vocals but it fits the length of her leg movements. She taps her break on the ground gently and stops staring once again at the railing because it would be so stupidly easy to jump in the skates and land over it, make it look like an accident, a ‘don’t hurt yourself’ type of accident.

Her mother always told her not to jump.

The devices they used for transportation that were similar to roller skates, the name of which she cannot remember as it was in her first lifetime and she may be on her third or fourth, had a use, had a meaning and if she was injured while retrieving the groceries or medicine, there was very little her mother could do.

She jumped anyway, and always landed cleanly with the satisfying sound of the wheels rolling on, the clacking and clicking and pavement being covered.

Spins again, feet over feet, then just on one foot, then backs up a few feet and with longer strokes of her legs gains speed and does a jump landing with the same rolling wheels. Backs up to take the jump from the opposite angle, interested in knowing if she can jump higher than the railing and if so that seems to just be a mislaid safety precaution.

Bends her knees finding her center of balance and takes off to jump.

Only, he comes around from the other side of the landing and it’s too late to abandon the jump, so she flies through the air waiting for an impact that doesn’t happen. He recoils in time and she lands in perfection once again, stopping just before running into the couch.

“Nice landing.” He’s wearing a wolfish grin, approaching her with plunging and agreeable eyes.

“I wanted to see if I still could.”

“What?”

“Jump.”

“Oh, don’t jump.”  His fingers graze the bottom of her chin and something within her flickers back to life. The adrenaline from the jump, the choice of to or not, the small remnant of power. “Sorry I was trying to unbuckle your helmet—wait you’re not wearing one.”

“Just shut up and kiss me.”

Doesn’t take long for him to cradle her ass in his hands, running them over to the couch, dropping her, but she won’t unhinge, can’t unhinge, and the red wheels embed in his ass. His mouth is sweet and tastes like citrus fruit, which means he was being naughty and sneaking late night snacks. His lips stick to hers with residue, one of her feet tumbles to roll against the ground and when he bonks her nose with his, she hisses in a bit, but his hands slip underneath her shirt and her breath hitches for another reason.

Neither of them really intended on the sex happening, but it’s just so natural, the progression, the build up, the way his fingers stroke her to perfection satisfying like the roll of the wheels, one of her legs still rolling against the ground from where she lays beneath him on the couch. Hot air over her stomach, her scar, her scars and she drags a hand through his hair, when he tastes her. Familiar, and relaxing, and hard. Hard as she strokes him through, then over the band of his pajama pants, his body back on hers, and without a word he pushes into her and she bites on his shoulder. The sensation is, of course, wonderful, but the closeness she missed, the regularity of sex, the smells and tastes and the pace they build together.

Working together.

A true master of his craft, he gets her off again before coming himself, his hand stroking her between their bodies and his mouth almost feverish. He’s been waiting just as long with only a few sloppy hand jobs to hold him over, she knows this because he grunts when he comes, something he hasn’t done with her before, well not this loudly, and it echoes down to the atrium.

“God,” pants against her shoulder, his lips starting to suck the skin curling her toes within the skates. “That was—”

“Some of your finest work,” she agrees, his head resting heavy against her still covered breasts. “It reminds me of—”

“The time after we came back from the Merlin planet,” finishes for her.

Her fingers tickle the inside of his ear, over his forehead and down his neck, stroking lines. “After the Merlin planet was good, but I was thinking of the time after I’d lost my memory—”

“First time or second time?” He leans up, grinning at her exacerbated reaction, before capturing her lips again.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Vala is listening to is Night Fever by the Bee Gees


	191. Day 191

Not garbage duty but she travels to the incinerator anyway. Strong enough, confident enough, to rid herself of a few items she no longer needs. Carries a cardboard box in but needs to toss them away one at a time, needs it to be cathartic because all the voices are saying this is a bad idea and she needs to show them she’s stronger, can manage on her own brilliantly without their constant on and off screaming commentary.

Tosses in the baby book Daniel demanded Samantha conjure up for her. It was supposed to tell her how to have a ‘happy and healthy’ pregnancy and did neither. The dry paper ignites almost immediately and the faint smell of ink courses through the air.

Next to go in is the baby book she’s started, one Samantha conjured up for her, a scrapbook type of novel where she was supposed to write what she was feeling, what was happening around her so that one day when the baby was old enough she could pass it down to them. It has a cartoon infant dressed as a rabbit on the front of it with tiny blue and pink butterflies and she whips it in like the frisbee she once whipped at the back of Daniel’s head on one of their company picnic thingies.

Lastly she holds the ultrasound photo. The only one, the one still stained with her blood and she stares at the little oblong wonder still imagining the life she had planned for them. Arts, and music, and advanced sciences of the upkeep of the vessel. Safety, absolute safety, and never fearing falling asleep or going to bed with a hungry tummy.

Most importantly love, unbridled love.

“Hey Princess,” Cameron greets as he pulls the leaden door to the room open, not quite fourteen bags of garbage dragging from his hands. “What are you doing down here?”

“Just getting rid of a few things.”

Stretches to toss the photo into the fire, but there’s a rustle of the bags dropping to the ground, and the harsh clamp of his fingers around her wrist. The action surprises her, reminds her of being caught when stealing portions of food, large men with thick fingers who broke hers. Naturally responds with a squeak, fanning out her fingers and releasing the photo to flutter to the ground.

He catches it while in midair.

“You were going to burn this?”

“I can not keep it any—”

“You were just going to burn it up? You didn’t even ask if I wanted it,” he shouts at her, he’s screaming, face red, mouth wide, words booming over the roar of the industrial fire.

“I’m not as strong as—”

“So, you were going to burn it?”

“I cannot continue to relive this memory, Cameron,” shouts back at him, not solely referring to their child, but to the flood of memories it brings back where she continually failed in being a mother. “I cannot embrace the constant failure.”

Fingers still locked snug against her wrist, her bones, her pulse and he could very easily snap it. Assumes he won’t, but Daniel punched her, knocked her down, and with each passing moment she believes he truly will. Tries to wrench away from him, and he shakes her still. His hold, she’s never seen him exert this amount of strength before.

“Denying it won’t change anything.”

Enough.

Had enough.

The voices rile and argue over aggressive or subordinate actions. She blinks against the orange blush of the fire contained in a metal belly and digs her spare hand between his fingers and her wrist.

“Neither will embracing it.”

Rips her hand free and wants to run, but walks knowing he’ll want some time to cool off and when he goes to talk to her she will not be there.

She won’t be anywhere.

She needs to disappear.


	192. Day 192

Spends the first day exploring the lower level dorms again.

The first room she breaks into smells of rotted food and flesh and she doesn’t care what happened there, just turns and exits coughing in whispers in case they hear her. No one is searching for her yet, but they will be, it’s only a matter of time.

It’s only a matter of time before she gets better, or she doesn’t.

She won’t.

Two hundred days is a long time to be stuck, but in the greater pool it’s barely a drop, and if this is what a drop looks like than it’s no wonder why she’s still frantically treading. Only her moves aren’t frantic any longer. More languid, sluggish like the grin of a beam outside all windows on one side of the ship at all times, rendering the other half of the vessel in darkness.

Their very own sun.

She might have had a son, one of the times must’ve been preparing for a son, a rowdy little boy with sticky palms and dirty overalls. She can’t embrace him, or it, or any of them because they all superimpose themselves in the hierarchy of importance and she’s tried of being invalidated.

Everything just over-dramatized.

The second room she enters, on the opposite side of the hallway and a few doors down, smells stale but not of death, there’s a grating of dust over the furniture and a beautiful family photo of a man, a woman, and two children. She crawls in behind the opposite side of the bed, so anyone entering the room will find it empty, and while she appreciates her gift of hiding, she wishes she didn’t have it, wishes she never learned it in the methods she did. 

Refuses to cry.

She will not cry.

Not now.

Not anymore.

Two-hundred days is a long time to stay afloat.

She’s starting to get tired.


	193. Day 193

The second day she spends in the air vents.

They’re tight, and dirty, and rather loud, but they’ve started mildly searching for her.

She used to do this back on the mountain. Crawl through the vents and drop into random rooms to search for baubles and shiny bits, for anything that could secure her a meal, or a living means, or a way out. After it was clear they tolerated her, she continued to do it for entertainment when everyone left for the evening or weekend, and they set her tracker to beep if she left her level.

She’s never been so calmly domesticated.


	194. Day 194

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please enjoy our final week together :)

“Perhaps if we used the intercom to address her—”

“Teal’c, she knows we’re looking for her.” Cameron crosses his arms, not looking at their friend, rather just all about the ship which is apt. She really could be anywhere. “Isn’t that right, Princess?”

And she almost answers him.

He knows her too well.

But answering would give away her vent transportation system which she isn’t about to expose yet.

Teal’c doesn’t say another word, doesn’t bow as he leaves, just quietly retreats in the direction of Samantha’s lab.

Cameron groans and leans his head back against the wall, he washes his hands over his hair and for the first time in three days, she witnesses the irritation disperse from the fine lines by his face. “Vala, if you are listening, just come back. Sam has some new medication she wants you to try. It’ll help you with the nightmares and the voices just—come back.”

When she doesn’t answer, he sighs, rubbing his forearm against his eyes and toddles out of the hallway. She waits a moment, less he actually hear her rattling around in the ceiling, and slides backwards turning down the vent leading to the shower room. It’s unoccupied and she kicks the hinged grating loose and tumbles out the end to land on her feet with a jolt.

She dusts her clothes and hair off and strolls through the hallway, flopping down in the familiar alcove. Landry passes her about an hour later but doesn’t notice her in the shadow of the ship.

She waits, and waits, and he doesn’t come.

It doesn’t usually take him so long, he checks the spot of her regularly, even when she walks by it with him, but he doesn’t show this time.

If she goes to him, his attitude will sour like Daniel’s used to, and she cannot deal with the added responsibility of balancing his mood.

As she decides to climb back up into the vents, to spend another night as a rat scurrying around the vessel, she falls asleep, her still tender nose pillowed on her still tender wrist, nestled tightly by three metal walls.

 


	195. Day 195

Wakes up in his bed, alone, tucked away under his mother’s knitted blanket. Beside her on the end table is a glass of water, a box of prescription medication, and two sleeping pills with a note in his writing instructing her to _take the pills_.

She doesn’t.

She does dig through his clean laundry pile for a new shirt because the one she’s in thick with her sleep. Grabs the familiar blue one, tossing hers in his dirty laundry pile, before dragging a stable chair over to the side wall and laboring at the wobbly screws holding his room’s grate in place.

As she’s on the last one, his door hisses open.

They both sort of view each other, him with a plate of breakfast for her and all the grand ideas of love and common-law marriage, and her balancing precariously on the thick blue chair as the last screw plinks to the ground.

Neither say a thing.

Both freeze, and then within the same second, both move.

Kicks the chair back and clambers into the vent, but the metal is slippery against her fingertips and offers no traction for her to use. She has to climb to the first soldering of the metal just a few inches away, it will give her a strong enough hold to haul her body through.

Doesn’t make it because as she desperately grasps, slapping and pulling, her legs dangle free and he grabs her in almost a competitive sports tackle.

Hands squeal against the metal.

“Cameron—”

“No, Vala. Let go.”

“No. You—”

Attempts to kick her way free, to use his shoulder as the propulsion she needs to slide fully into the vent, but he foresees the struggle, wrapping one arm around her knees limiting her movement, and one arm around her waist for stability.

“Vala, stop.”

Yanks her free, but she struggles against him, trying to liberate herself. Notices his hand sliding up her, her feet nearing the ground, her hands shoving off his shoulders.

“Release me.”

Moves to hit him in the shoulder, but at the last second, just as Daniel did to her, the force behind her fist diffuses and it turns more into a light tap.

“Then calm down.”

“I’m perfectly calm,” she screams in his face.

Her knees, bent from cycling through the air, trying but not wanting, to land a kick, bounce against the pliable mattress. She huffs, and he situates himself between her and the grate. Her chest stops compressing, stops inflating at an alarming rate, but she openly sobs nonetheless.

“Why did you have to hurt me?”

 


	196. Day 196

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my favorite chapter. If I said that before, I was lying. This is it.

Sits alone at the dining room table.

A once clay colored terracotta pot sits before her.

She has all the colors. All of them and she mixed them together like the voices in her head string off each other and create a giant yarn ball in the middle of her head, and they made black.

They made nothing.

The pot is black inside and out and doesn’t reflect any light from the lingering beam. Sits as a void upon the table.

They convinced her to take the medication and it makes her feel nothing. Makes her empty of emotion on the inside and she sits on the chair.

A pot staring at another pot.

He cried into her that he did not mean to hurt her, that he would never hurt her, words she’s heard dozens of times by dozens of voices, held an ice pack to her wrist until he didn’t have sensation in his fingers. It wasn’t that bad, it didn’t hurt that much, what hurt is the way he treated her.  Leaned back against his shoulder in a half daze from the medication prescribed by people who know nothing of medication and slurred, “I would have gladly let you have it if you only asked.”

And maybe that was his breaking point like this is hers.

Grabs the pot in a single movement and drills it at the floor.

Screams as the black pottery gives birth to more black fragments that jitter and scratch across the ground.

Screams because black is what black does.

Screams because black is the nothingness that she used to be so afraid of, the one full of her lingering pain and so empty of love, but somehow the blackness crept into this word and started to consume her from the inside out.

Screams because they made her black inside.

She tumbles to the ground, out of breath, panting, her throat a bit raspy.

“Vala?” Teal’c places a hand, comforting and heavy, on her shoulder, and through tears peaking at her eyes from the exertion, she views his expression of obvious concern. “Are you injured? Do you require assistance?”

Takes his hand, standing and attempting to dust herself free of the lingering blackness, but it’s dyed her shirts and pants now. “I’m fine, Teal’c.”

Pats his shoulder and walks away.

 


	197. Day 197

 

Kicks open the grate to the room and drops down, landing on her feet in a bit of a crouch.

“Gah.” He fumbles with the text keeping him company in the abandoned section of the medical bay, laying in her old bed, the sheets changed and purged of their blood.

“Hello Darling.”

She kicks a chair over to the side of his bed and relaxes back into it. When she leans to view what he could be watching, the television is blank, black and unused.

She should’ve known.

“Vala, what the hell are you doing here?”  The swelling on his face has gone down significantly and is devoid of fabric stitches, but across his forehead, his cheek, and his chin, the gashes are sewn together with bits of sterile plastic tape.

“Well I came to see you of course.” Eyes the remains of his last meal, some pizza crusts and a cup of untouched red Jello.

“Yeah and what type of beating am I going to receive for this one?”

“None, I simply wanted to tell you that I forgive you and be on my merry way.” Grabs the Jello and pushes around the silverware looking for a free spoon.

His mouth is agape and for a moment, offense palpable in his tone, “you’ve forgiven me?”

There is no spoon to be found, so she plucks a jiggly cube between her finger and thumb and slurps it up, holding her other hand beneath to catch any debris, only nodding for an answer.

“Why do you need to forgive me? You’re the one who—”

“Oh Darling, don’t get so worked up about it.” Plucks up more delicious cubes and plops them into her mouth.

“No, you and Cameron—”

“One day you’ll see the great opportunity we gave you, and you’ll be so very heartbroken when you realize what you did.”

“I think you should go.”

“Mmm, yes.” Sucks her fingers clean of any leftover juice, wiping her hands on her thighs. When she stands by the side of the bed Daniel sort of recoils, but she drops a kiss in his hair and ruffles it with her sticky fingers. “Just remember how you felt.”

“What?”

“You’ll figure it out Darling.” She blows him another kiss and pulls herself back into the vent.


	198. Day 198

Acts busy as her door whooshes open, him trotting inside. She wasn’t doing anything, but there are magazines scattered all along her bed, and the buds of his music player buried in her ears. She glances up from taking the same quiz telling her what type of lover she is for the twentieth time, she knows, she’s a selfish one.

He taps his ear and she obediently removes the left bud. “It’s noon, Princess.”

“Please don’t call me that.”

Doesn’t remember when he started, when he labelled her, perhaps upon her first exit from the stargate, the first time she strolled in with the armed guards nudging her along. Maybe when she became hostile over food and trinkets because she hadn’t eaten for days, or when she snuggled down into the positively basic beds at SGC because it had been so long since she could sleep without leaving one eye open.

She’s been a lot of things, a runner for the apothecary, a civil daughter, a child slave, a piece of meat, an object of desire, a God, the mother of the Orici, and among them she’s never been a princess.

“Sorry,” whispers with a small voice that doesn’t suit him. He hands her a few pills and a bottle of water. “It’s—uh—it’s time for your meds.”

Plucks them from his open palm and swallows them along with the gush of water. Returning the bottle to him, she expects him to leave, but he doesn’t. He dallies, then sits on the edge of her bed, the music only half in her ears, the voices consuming her from within.

“We can get over this.” His back still to her, fiddling with the bottle between his hands and the sloshing of water accompanies the din, just the unending din.

“No, we can’t.” Blasé in her answer because it is a fact. His neck cranes back to her and she adds, “I’m going to be taking these pills for the rest of my life.”

“That’s not what I was talking about.”

“Oh.” Flips a page in her magazine and the ennui sets in first. The boredom with every single thing that used to keep her entertained, doesn’t want the music, or the roller skates, doesn’t want help, just wants to sleep. “Then what?”

“I meant about—” When he doesn’t continue she glances up at him, and he widens his eyes.

“About what?”

“About—what happened—what I did in—”

“Oh Cameron, I don’t care.” Slaps shut the magazine. She is too exhausted to care, the last time she felt like this she was creating someone and then she supposes, she felt like this when she wasn’t creating them anymore as well.

“I care.”

“All the men I’ve been with, they’ve all hurt me, why—”

“Because I didn’t mean to.”

“Yes.” Raises her eyebrows and nods at him. “You did.”

 “I—it was—”

“You broke. It’s not a problem.” Clears off magazines from the bed, tossing them to the floor with smacks. “I just never assumed I’d be the one to break you.”

 


	199. Day 199

Disengages from him using tactics cultivated over the past seven months, starts from the feet unwinding them from his, and then snakes her hand through the hole left by his bent arm. His other arm poses more of a problem as it’s wrapped tightly around her head like a protective veil from all the voices, from the nightmares, the claustrophobia, and the pain that leaks from her body like oil from beneath a vehicle.

Tries to duck her head under, but her warm breath against his exposed skin in the climate free room stirs his body into a half-conscious mound. The bend of his arm tightens against her head as he rolls out his back, then relaxes while his legs go in search of hers. “Vala?”

“I’m sorry, Darling.” Uses her hands to guide his arm up and away from her head, then rolls off her side of the bed.

He has an idiotic grin of sleep slapped onto his face and he blinks dully at her once while she dresses, then twice. Then he bolts up in bed. “Wait, where are you going?”

“To the washroom, Darling.” The overuse of the pet name is going to give her away, so she slows pulling her favorite, holier than ever, pajama pants up her legs. “I have to pee.”

“Oh.” Exhales and rests back on his elbows, as she yanks on a tank top over her head. The room is terribly cold, and she hugs an arm around herself to keep her pebbling breasts a secret lest he get any ideas. “Want me to come with you?”

“I don’t need help aiming, thank you.” Doesn’t bother with a sweater tossed onto the ground beside the dusty grate, or with shoes because she doesn’t need them. Leans over to his side of the bed and gives him a peck on his temple tasting the saltiness of sweat accumulated in a deep, warm sleep.

He holds the side of her face, his mouth brushing over hers, and when they break, his nose rubs against hers. She copies his smile and again disengages from him, padding towards the doorway, depressing the button until it whooshes open to the desolate and empty corridor.

“Vala?”

Faces into the hallway knowing this is her last hurdle, sneaking out of this room is the last burden she’ll have to unload the guilt of. Stares into the darkness imagining the sea at night, the river with such a strong current to take her away. “Yes, Darling?”

“I love you.”

Angles her head back into the room, blinking away the set tears. “I love you too, Darling.”

He grins back, his teeth glowing white in the lack of light. “Hurry back.”

Nods so she doesn’t let out another ‘darling’ and when the door closes behind her there’s simultaneously a gust of relief and another, heavier burden. She can’t think about him, about them, because she’s done enough for other people, been used up by other people, and now its time for her to do one thing for herself.

Knew remorse was inevitable, so she spent the night with him. Let him smell her hair, lick her skin, taste her one final time so he would have a good memory because in the years facing him, he’s going to need it. Kissed him goodbye and still felt him, still feels him because she does love him but the situation, the situation bullied them into opposite corners, masticated their relationship like it has masticated her body, sunk teeth into her hip because it needed blood, it needed a sacrifice.

But she’s tired.

Tired of trying, of running, of bleeding and hurting and hiding. Tired of being on this bloody ship, in this bloody time frame with a team who doesn’t know a single thing about her. Tried of being so exhausted when she wakes in the morning because of tossing and turning and villager’s voices calling her a ‘whore god’ and Adria calling her ‘mother’, of Daniel calling her a ‘bitch’ in the medical bay because he missed the _Daedalus_ to Atlantis and Cameron calling her ‘princess’ because she sat in a pile of Merlin’s gold with a well earned tiara.

The door hardly clicks closed behind her to the bathroom, didn’t lie about that, never completely lies to him, fabricates little stitches of truth because guilt is such an easy currency to come by. Because if her words aren’t entirely false, then he’ll believe her. Nod and grin and kiss the skin over her pulse point.

Keeps the lights off. Thought she might ruminate a bit, flip the seat of the toilet down and sit in the dark weighing her decision that hangs heavy around her neck, buries itself in the rings beneath her eyes, stitches itself into her hip where the force of a snug life once lived, collects in her lungs like water and in her pockets like rock.

She no longer treads.

Fluid movement in the darkness of the water closet, her last step before the toilet and then a step up onto the lid,  cracked and dented fingernails twisting away the screws in the vent.

Expected them to find it.

Her stash.

Each screw plinks to the ground with a lovely light sound, skittering across the floor like the many rats she’s shared prison cells with, like the many hidden tears cascading over her cheeks. Four little plinks for melodies forgotten after tonight.

Behind the grate sits all the pills Cameron and Samantha and everyone else have gotten her to take. Some antidepressants, antinauseants, antibiotics none all together helpful, but together all helpful

In her head her mother’s voice rings out, louder, stronger than the rest.

_Be happy, you must always keep a happy disposition._

Now she can.

Finally can with the first pill swallowed, slipping down the back of her throat. Then the second. Easy enough.

A third, a fourth.

Fifth, sixth, seventh.

Another handful.

Another.

And another until all the all the little bubbles housing pills are evicted, no longer roll in the palm of her hand or against the back of her throat.

Time passes, or it doesn’t. Eyelids droop suddenly, and her limbs weigh her down, toppling over into the wall. Pill packaging littered around her bare feet. The voices in her head pop and sizzle away, sound like a heavy beat, a thunk thunk thunk of what she assumes is running feet, but they will never make it, then equates the sound with her own heart pumping wildly out of control.

A shudder overtakes her, and she can no longer move, gray easing in and erasing, softening until the black, the nothingness overtakes her, slowly at first like night falling over the golden fields where she was to be wed, like the color of rich flowing blood dried over Qetesh’s ceremonial dress, like any pit of the mountain, her enclosure, for three years.

The nothingness is no longer scary, the darkness and the void no longer feared in the way when fire seared her skin and engulfed her organs and she sinks.

Sinks no longer treading the surface.

No water in her lungs.

No rocks in her pockets.

And yes mother, she is happy.

 


	200. øøø

Cameron sits in the alcove. Stares at the wall she stared at for so long. Rests his forehead against the metal bulkhead and listens to the low purr of the _Odyssey_ going through automated functions.

“Cam?” Sam stands in the hallway, the light breaching through her hair. “It’s been four days; you should really eat something.”

“Four days isn’t five days.”

“What?”

“Why bother?”

“Because she wouldn’t have wanted—”

He turns on her like a caged animal, teeth baring, spittle flaring, and she takes a step back out of the light. “No one knows what—knew—” The stumble, the verb tense makes him backtrack in his mind to when she sat beside him, laughed with him, rested beneath him. She had a smell. He’s starting to forget it. “No one knew what she was thinking.”

“If you need to talk—”

“Why didn’t you talk to her?”

“I did, Cam.” When Sam drops beside him, the metallic grate shudders with her weight. Her eyes are just as glassy and red-brimmed as his. “I did, but she didn’t want help.”

“We should have made her take it.” Tears itch his eyes again, and he remembers laying beside her in the bed, her listening to the music and sobbing. He just held her, thinking it would be enough. “We should have done more.”

“You can’t blame—”

“We should have known.”

“She barely told us anything about her past, about the other lives she lived before coming to the SGC.”

“She told me things.” His fingers rip at his hair as he sobs into his forearms. He turns to his companion, a woman he’s known for almost twenty-years, who has never seen him cry like this, who has never seen him so lost being trapped in every way. “I loved her, Sam. I still love her.”

Her hand slips into his, wet and clammy. “We all loved her.”

“Some of us needed her.”

The silence that falls between them isn’t reflective of the woman, the friend, the family they’ve both lost, but of mentioning another in absence. A loaded topic on an already loaded vessel.

But Sam has one less to protect now. After all she dragged them into the situation of domesticated living on a spacecraft like being caged in a zoo. The deaths, the one she manages to quell are still bodies hanging off of her back. With four others to protect, she has to protect them all. “About Daniel. Are you going to—”

“Why bother?” Adds with a half-sniffle, half-disgusted laugh, wiping his eyes with his wrist. “There’s nothing else he can take from me.”

“You—just—I don’t know, Cam.” Sam’s tired and she can’t hold the tears in any longer, the ones she would tuck away until someone came and told her it was okay to be depressed, okay to be remorseful, and no one told them.

No one told her.

“Sometimes I wake up and I’m still excited to be a dad.” His face matches his heart, broken and fractured expressions, tears and saliva, red corneas and skin. “It’s not fucking fair. She could’ve been—she should be here with me. Even not with me. Even with—”

“You can’t blame her.”

The clump of their hands is too heavy to keep up, so he drops them with a thump to the same metal grate she sat on, the same one that made red lines across the backs of her thighs, the ones she giggled at while he traced with his tongue. “I can’t blame her. I can’t blame you. I can’t blame me. Who the fuck do I blame, Sam? What do I have left? Even if we make it out of here. What do I have left? I lost her. I lost my son.”

“Your son?” The words are heavier than any hand.

He defensively releases her hand, her tone isn’t accusatory, but almost all words are now. Didn’t see the signs and fell asleep beside her, didn’t see the signs and made her a gourmet meal because she didn’t eat. She just didn’t eat and maybe she felt as shitty as he does now, and he huffs out a sob. “It—the baby—the baby was mine. Vala thought it was a boy. It’s good enough for me.”

Sam was privy to the scans though, to medical data that a physician, an obstetrician, a best friend—if she was that—would have knowledge of but ignore, delete, deny based on the patient’s preference. She didn’t, couldn’t, because it was her first use of the machines, and she knows the biological history of a fetus—the Asgardian technology confirmed a little boy—who would never come to be. She knows the chromosomal patterns as they flashed on screen and how the machine automatically matched parental DNA from those aboard the ship to paternity of the happy little bud sitting tucked away safely inside a mother who was less than twenty-four hours from having a traumatic miscarriage.

She knows and that’s why she doesn’t tell him he’s wrong.

 


	201. Day 0

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started writing this story almost a year ago today.  
> Thank you for spending the last seven months with me.   
> I hope you enjoyed the story.

Her elbow and knee hurt where she smashed them off the ground during that Ori attack. Doesn’t know what took them so long to throw this bucket of a vessel into hyperdrive, but there’s a pang of relief that they all didn’t explode and become strewn about in space.

Stands, dusting her pants off and and eyeing Samantha and Muscles who are in a very intense conversation a few feet away. Perhaps she can convince Daniel that she needs some sort of medical monitoring since they sent all nonessential staff, including the doctors, off the ship to catch the nearest stargate. At most she needs an ice pack, but it’s always nice to be looked after by a handsome man.

Perhaps if she licked her lips at precisely the right time, Mitchell would forget his idiotic rule of no fraternizing on any space vessels. He insists it’s so they don’t get caught, but she knows it’s so he can still have a semblance of power.

Although little tumble would get her muscles relaxed, it’s being satisfied without being loved. It feels naughty and wrong, but it’s better than going to bed alone every night.

“Vala.” Muscles bellows, omitting her full moniker, and purposefully interrupting his conference with Samantha to charge around the Asgardian command console.

Stops in her tracks as he barrels towards her on a rampage, her hands barely making it from tightening her hair down to her side to prepare for the impact.

But he doesn’t run her over, he hoists her into the air, spinning her with jovial, throaty chuckles.

Mitchell and Daniel enter the room, both equally confused, at least she believes they are from brief snapshots of them from her centrifuge vision.

Finally, he stops their rotations, lowering her back to the ground like royalty, the same huge grin as he does so.

Daniel skews his face, “okay?”

Mitchell leans against the console, his head even with Samantha’s, but in a voice loud enough for her to overhear, he questions, “what’s going on with the Big Guy?”

“Apparently we were stuck in a time dilation field for fifty years before I found a way to reverse the effects.”

“Fifty years.” Pats his hard shoulder. “Then you’re quite the happy boy today, aren’t you?”

His grin warms again and his hand rests on the side of her cheek. She doesn’t understand the physical intimacy pouring from him and when she glances to the others, they all share a similar expression of shock. But love is love and caring is caring and a hug and a spin with Muscles is always worth something to her. So she hugs him, and he hugs back, not stiffening away from her embrace. “Yes, Vala, I am.”


End file.
